300,000
Palestinians Attend Funeral of Gaza Massacre Victims
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Two-month-old
Dunia Matar is the latest victim of Israeli aggression
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GAZA,
July 23, (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Hundred of thousands of
angry Palestinians attended on Tuesday, July 23, the funeral of Sheikh
Salah Shehada, leader of the armed wing of the Islamic Resistance
Movement Hamas, and 14 other Palestinian civilians who were killed
late Monday night, July 22, in a deadly Israeli air strike in the Gaza
City.
Tens of
thousands of Palestinians gathered outside Al-Shifa Hospital in the
western neighborhood of the city, waiting to take the bodies of the 15
people killed in the overnight Israeli air strike on a civilian
building, Xinhua News Agency reported.
Supporters
and resistance fighters of the five main Palestinian factions, namely
the Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, Hamas, the
Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
(PFLP), and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine
(DFLP), took part in the funeral procession.
About
300,000 people attended the funeral procession snaking through Gaza's
streets, BBC’s online news service reported.
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About
300,000 people attended the funeral procession
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A man
held aloft the tiny body of a dead two-month-old baby girl, Dunia
Matar, wrapped in a flag, while masked men chanted: "Death to
Israel! Death to America!"
The
bodies of the dead, including nine children, were carried on the
shoulders of the mourners who marched down the city’s main street to
the destroyed building to let their families and neighbors bid
farewell to the killed.
The
crowd reached the main mosque of the city for prayers, then the bodies
were carried again on the mourners’ shoulders and headed toward the
local main cemetery.
“Sleep
well martyrs, sleep well Sheikh Shehada, and never mind your people
will revenge soon for your blood,” chanted one mourner, while
another said the happiness of Israel and the Israelis would never last
for too long.
Back at
Al-Shifa hospital, from where the endless cortege wound its way
towards Gaza’s Sheikh Radwan mosque, the mood was somber and quiet
by contrast, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
The
head of the emergency unit, Dr. Muawiyeh Abu Hassanein, said 145
people were wounded in the powerful strike described by many there as
“like an earthquake.”
Abu
Hassanein said, “Fifteen of the wounded are in critical condition
which could increase the final death toll.”
Twenty-four-year-old
Ismail Huweiti’s most immediate concern lay in how to tell his three
remaining nephews that neither their mother nor their four- and
three-year-old brothers, Mohammed and Subhi, would be coming home.
In
Darraj, the neighborhood which Israel struck, people could hardly
grasp the tragedy that had befallen them.
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“Israel
wants to kill one person and killed 14 civilians along with
him,” one Palestinian commented
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“Israel
wants to kill one person and killed 14 civilians along with him,”
said Mahmud, 42, perplexed and sitting among the twisted iron bars and
collapsed walls of at least two houses torn apart by the blast.
“When
their civilians die, it becomes a world tragedy. Their names and faces
are known to all while ours are forgotten as collateral damage or
mistakes,” said Mahmud.
“Israel
now is not only involved in troubles with Hamas or the Islamic Jihad,
but also involved in troubles with all the Palestinian people,” said
Imad Salman, one of the mourners.
“Every
Palestinian will revenge for their death.”
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