13 members of the same family are thought to have died in Sunday’s airstrike
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu previously said the country’s military went to “unprecedented lengths” to avoid killing civilians.
The conflict between Gaza and Israel continues despite International calls for the violence to end. A total of 63 children have been killed by the Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, whilst two children have died in Israel after rockets were fired by Palestinian militants.
Amongst those killed in Sunday’s airstrike in Gaza include 9-year-old Yara and 5-year-old Rula. The sisters sadly alongside several other members of their family in an air strike. The family’s home turned into a large pile of rubble, Sky News reported.
A spokesperson for Israel’s military said that the deaths were “unintentional” as they were targeting Hama’s “underground military” tunnel which collapsed. However, homes were also destroyed in the bombings which the spokesperson said caused “unintended casualties.”
Yara and Rula’s uncle, Awni al Kawlak, told Sky News that the young girls lived in a permanent state of fear.
He said: “Before the war, the girls were really, really scared. Every time they heard a sound the girls would run and grab their mum and dad and would say ‘mum we’re going to die, we’re scared’. That’s before they were killed.”
Yara and Rula had been receiving treatment from the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) for trauma following years of war.
One of the girls’ teachers, who wished to remain anonymous, told the BBC that the al-Kawaleks were well-behaved children who always completed their homework on time.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended the Israeli Defence Forces at a recent meeting of foreign diplomats, explaining that the Israeli military are going to great lengths to avoid injuring civilians.
He said: “We go to unprecedented lengths to prevent civilian casualties. When you see those buildings that fall there is not a single civilian death there.”
Netanyahu is coming under mounting pressure from countries across the world to put a stop to the ongoing military operation.
