Bitterness deepens over Gaza raid [View All]

[JoFerret]

http://newsobserver.com/24hour/world/story/1385204p-8631935c.html

By ILENE R. PRUSHER, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (CSM) - Najwa Mohammed El Hashash was desperate to keep her oldest son from rushing out to the angry funeral processions of the latest martyr, so every time a Palestinian in their neighborhood was killed, she hid his sandals.
But 9-year-old Mubarak went anyway, running barefoot. And Thursday, his mother's worst nightmare was realized as her son was held aloft by the procession instead of scampering alongside it. He was the youngest of 10 Palestinians killed on Wednesday when the Israeli army fired a tank shell at a crowd of mostly young demonstrators demanding an end to Israel's military siege of the area.
International demands that Israel end its campaign against this section of the Gaza Strip, a patchwork of sandy plains and shanty refugee camps bordering Egypt, have grown more vocal as the military continued a third day of raids in which 39 Palestinians have been killed. Israel says its operations are aimed at routing militant groups and destroying tunnels used to ferry weapons into the Gaza Strip - all part of a plan to eventually withdraw from the volatile area where Israel maintains about 8,000 settlers.

"Those innocent kids killed in front of the television cameras, for nothing," says El Hashash, as she sat with other female relatives, her brown eyes drowning as she waits for the men to come home from the cemetery. "I wish that every Israeli soldier's mother will be sad and angry one day, the way they left me sad and angry."

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