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| Witness Accounts of Gaza Attack That Killed 4 Boys | Witness Accounts of Gaza Attack That Killed 4 Boys |
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| Foreign correspondents reporting from Gaza on Wednesday offered visceral accounts of a deadly attack that killed four children on the beach outside a hotel in which the journalists were staying. Tyler Hicks, a New York Times photographer, was among those who rushed from the hotel to the beach as a desperate scramble unfolded to save the lives of other children wounded in the shelling. | |
| Witnesses said that the barrage appeared to come from the sea, where Israeli ships are enforcing a naval blockade. | |
| Several other reporters, including Jonathan Miller of Britain’s Channel 4 News, Ayman Mohyeldin of NBC News and Peter Beaumont of The Guardian, described the immediate aftermath of the shelling in text accounts and images uploaded to Twitter, even as they tried to help three other boys wounded in the barrage. | Several other reporters, including Jonathan Miller of Britain’s Channel 4 News, Ayman Mohyeldin of NBC News and Peter Beaumont of The Guardian, described the immediate aftermath of the shelling in text accounts and images uploaded to Twitter, even as they tried to help three other boys wounded in the barrage. |
| Mr. Mohyeldin reported that the four boys who were killed in the attack were between 9 and 11 years old and had been playing soccer and hide-and-seek on the beach. | Mr. Mohyeldin reported that the four boys who were killed in the attack were between 9 and 11 years old and had been playing soccer and hide-and-seek on the beach. |
| He also reported that the deaths illustrated that warnings from Israel’s military urging civilians to evacuate the area are ineffective. “The vast majority of the people here do not take the warnings seriously because it’s not clear where they are supposed to evacuate to,” he said. | He also reported that the deaths illustrated that warnings from Israel’s military urging civilians to evacuate the area are ineffective. “The vast majority of the people here do not take the warnings seriously because it’s not clear where they are supposed to evacuate to,” he said. |
| Mr. Beaumont, who helped administer first aid to a boy with a shrapnel wound in his chest, called the incident “a personal low point,” and reported that fellow journalists standing outside the Al-Deira hotel shouted “at unseen Israeli gunners who can’t hear them: ‘They are only children.'” | Mr. Beaumont, who helped administer first aid to a boy with a shrapnel wound in his chest, called the incident “a personal low point,” and reported that fellow journalists standing outside the Al-Deira hotel shouted “at unseen Israeli gunners who can’t hear them: ‘They are only children.'” |
| A Palestinian health official told Reuters that the children were killed by shelling from an Israeli gunboat. The Israel Defense Forces later said in a statement that it was investigating the incident. “Based on preliminary results, the target of this strike was Hamas terrorist operatives," the military spokesman’s unit said. | |
| Avital Leibovich, a former military spokeswoman who is now the director of the American Jewish Committee office in Jerusalem, expressed sympathy for the children, but blamed the Islamist militants of Hamas for provoking the conflict that led to their deaths. | |
| The Israeli military shared video on social networks on Wednesday to illustrate that it takes what officials have described as great pains to avoid civilian casualties. | The Israeli military shared video on social networks on Wednesday to illustrate that it takes what officials have described as great pains to avoid civilian casualties. |
| A local news agency, Media 24, shared on Facebook what it said were images of four people running from the shelling on the beach during the attack. The authenticity of the photographs could not be immediately confirmed, but a New York Times reporter in Gaza said that they seemed to be genuine. A driver for the same agency was killed in an airstrike on his car last week, even though it was marked “TV.” | A local news agency, Media 24, shared on Facebook what it said were images of four people running from the shelling on the beach during the attack. The authenticity of the photographs could not be immediately confirmed, but a New York Times reporter in Gaza said that they seemed to be genuine. A driver for the same agency was killed in an airstrike on his car last week, even though it was marked “TV.” |
| Mr. Miller later posted images of the funeral procession for the four boys killed Wednesday, and noted that they come from a family well-known in the area for its fishermen, “an extremely dangerous pursuit in Gaza.” | Mr. Miller later posted images of the funeral procession for the four boys killed Wednesday, and noted that they come from a family well-known in the area for its fishermen, “an extremely dangerous pursuit in Gaza.” |