Getty ImagesNewborn twins were killed in Gaza while their father was registering their birth at a local government office.
When Asser, a boy, and Aisel, a girl, were four days old, their father, Mohammed Abu Qumsan, went to collect their birth certificates.
While he was away, his neighbors called to say their home in Deir al-Bala had been bombed.
Israeli air strikes also killed his wife and the twins’ grandmother.
“I don’t know what happened,” he said. “I heard a shell hit the house.”
“I didn’t even have time to celebrate them,” he added.
Within weeks of the start of the Israel-Gaza war, the family followed instructions from the Israeli army to evacuate Gaza City and seek refuge in the central Gaza Strip, according to the Associated Press.
Israel did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the attack.
The Israeli military said it was trying to avoid harming civilians and blamed the deaths on Hamas operations in densely populated areas, including using civilian buildings as shelters.
But officials rarely comment on individual strikes.
Several such shelters in Gaza have been attacked in the past few weeks.
Saturday, a Israeli air strikes on a school building A hospital director told the BBC that sheltering displaced Palestinians in Gaza City resulted in more than 70 deaths.
An Israeli military spokesman said the school “is an active military installation for Hamas and Islamic Jihad,” but Hamas denies this.
Israel disputes the death toll, but the BBC could not independently verify either side’s figures.
On October 7, militants led by Hamas launched an attack on Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking another 251 people back to Gaza as hostages.
That attack triggered a massive Israeli military assault on Gaza and the current war.
According to the Gaza health ministry, which is run by Hamas, more than 39,790 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli operations.
