Mohammed Abu al-Qumsan's twins—Asser, a boy, and Ayssel, a girl—were just four days old when their father went to register their births and pick up their birth certificates at a government office in Gaza Tuesday. While he was gone, the family home was hit by an Israeli airstrike, the Guardian reports. The newborns were killed, as were their mother and grandmother, the BBC reports. "I don't know what happened. I am told it was a shell that hit the house," says the devastated father. "I didn't even have the time to celebrate them." The family had reportedly evacuated Gaza City in the early days of the Israel-Hamas war and sheltered in an apartment in a central part of the Gaza Strip, as instructed by the Israeli military.
According to the health ministry in Gaza, which is run by Hamas, 115 infants in Gaza have been born and then killed since the war began. The ministry says Israeli attacks in Gaza have killed almost 40,000 Palestinians, more than 16,400 of them children, and wounded more than 92,000 others. At least 23 people were reportedly killed in strikes around the area of the twins' home Tuesday, including a 9-month-old, CNN reports. The twins' mother had just celebrated their births on Facebook, calling the babies a "miracle." (More Israel-Hamas war stories.)
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