A Palestinian father lost his newborn children, his wife and his mother-in-law in a shelling by the Israeli armed forces in the Gaza Strip, Al-Aqsa Hospital sources said.

A representative of the hospital confirmed that the bodies of a young woman, two infants and an older woman were brought there early Tuesday morning.

Their house in Deir al-Bala was hit in an Israeli operation.

The Israeli armed forces limited themselves to stating that they are not aware of the incident.

The father, Mohammed Abu al-Qumsan, told the German Agency that the twins were born on Saturday.

On Tuesday, she left the house to go to the registry office in order to have the children’s birth certificates issued.

A relative called to tell him that his wife, their children, and his mother-in-law had been killed in a bombing while he was away.

“Why did they bomb the house when they knew we were civilians?” asked al-Qumshan.

His wife was a doctor. He was working in the United Arab Emirates before returning to the Gaza Strip.

“They took everything from me: my house, my family, my wife and our two children. How am I going to live now?” he continued.

In a statement, Israel’s military stressed that it was hitting “only” military targets in the Gaza Strip and was “taking many measures to minimize the possibility of civilian harm.”

According to the health ministry of the enclave, where Hamas has ruled since 2007, at least 39,965 people have been killed and another 92,294 injured in the war that broke out in the Gaza Strip in October.

Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by the US and the EU, after it attacked southern areas of Israeli territory on October 7, in which 1,198 people, mostly civilians, were killed. according to a count based on official Israeli data.

As civilian casualties mount and the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is described as catastrophic, international criticism of Israel’s conduct of the war is intensifying, as are calls for a ceasefire.