Holy Land: Seven Palestinian children killed in strawberry fields

Seven Palestinian children between the ages of ten and 17 were killed by an anti-personel shell in a strawberry field in northern Gaza on Tuesday. Dr Mohamed Sultan of the Beit Lahiya hospital said eleven were also wounded, four critically.

Two of the survivors had double leg amputations, another lost one leg. According to eyewitnesses, an Israeli military post between the illegal Israeli settlements of Elei Sinai and Nisanit, north of the Palestinian town of Beit Lahiya, fired the tank shell into a Palestinian agricultural area, directly hitting the group of children who were working on the land. Six of the boys who were killed were from the same family, and three were brothers.

The names of the dead children are: Hani Mohammed Ghaben (17), and his brothers Bassam (14) and Mohammed (12); their cousins Rajeh Ghassan Ghaben (10), Jaber Abdullah Ghaben (15), Mohammed Hassan Ghaben (17); and a neighbour named Jibril Abdul Fattah al-Kaseeh (16). Since Yasser Arafat died, more than 75 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces, many of them children. In the same period, no Israeli civilians have been killed by Palestinians.