Father reunited with son in Gaza after losing wife, 4 children to Israeli airstrike
Mohammed Hadidi told reporters that his wife and her brother's wife had gathered with their children at their home to celebrate the Eid al-Fitr holiday
An emotional video shows a father reunited with his wounded infant son just hours after searching for his family in a Gaza City refugee camp ravaged by Israeli airstrikes, only to discover that his wife and four children had been killed.
Inside Gaza City's Dar Al-Shifa Hospital, Mohammed Hadidi is heard saying in Arabic as he consoles his son "My darling, my darling, thank God, thank God. Calm down, darling, calm down."
Mohammed Hadidi told reporters that his wife and her brother's wife had gathered with their children at their home to celebrate the Eid al-Fitr holiday, reports abc7.
Mohammed Hadidi told reporters that his wife and her brother's wife had gathered at the house with their children to celebrate the Eid al-Fitr holiday ending the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
Omar Hadidi, six months old, was injured when an Israeli airstrike struck a three-story house in Gaza City's densely populated Shati refugee camp on Saturday which took the life of his mother and four siblings, aged 6 to 14.
"This is the severest of crimes. My family never launched rockets or bombed anything, they just went to celebrate Eid with their uncle and then we now come to the hospital to take their dismembered bodies," Mohammed Hadidi said outside of the hospital. "My younger child is five months, and he is now injured at the hospital. What did he do? Did he launch rockets at the Jews? Who is angry with my five-month-old son? Allah is my suffice, and the best deputy."
The blast left the children's bedroom covered in rubble and smashed the salon. Amid the wreckage were children's toys, a Monopoly board game and, sitting on the kitchen counter, unfinished plates of food from the holiday gathering.
"There was no warning ... You filmed people eating and then you bombed them?" a neighbour, Jamal Al-Naji, said, referring to Israel's surveillance over the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Hamas said it fired a salvo of rockets at southern Israel in response to the airstrike.
As of Sunday, at least 188 Palestinians have been killed in the hundreds of airstrikes in Gaza, including 55 children and 33 women. Eight people in Israel have been killed, including a 5-year-old boy and a soldier.
Despite the toll and international efforts to broker a cease-fire, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signaled the fourth war with Gaza's Hamas rulers would rage on. Hamas also pressed on, launching rockets from civilian areas in Gaza toward civilian areas in Israel.
