A mother was mourning the death of her five-month-old twin babies on Sunday in Rafah, after they died in an Israeli airstrike. It took 10 years and three rounds of in vitro fertilization for Rania Abu Anza to become pregnant with a boy and a girl.

   Five-month-old twin babies were killed in an Israeli airstrike on March 2, 2024 in Rafah city in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestine. Their mother, Rania Abu Anza, held the twins' bodies and wailed before their burial. She closed her eyes, leaned her head against the wall, and made a gesture of stroking the bundle. Israeli airstrikes struck her relatives' home in the southern Gaza city of Rafah late on March 2. Her children, her husband, and 11 other relatives were killed, and nine more were missing under the rubble.

　She woke up around 10 p.m. on March 2 to feed her male infant, Naeem, and fell asleep with him in one arm and her female infant, Wissam, in the other. Her husband was sleeping beside her. The explosion occurred an hour and a half later and the house collapsed. Of the 14 people killed in her home, six were children and four were women, according to the hospital where the bodies were taken. In addition to Rania's husband and children, her sister, nephew, pregnant cousin, and other relatives were killed. She cried and clutched her baby blanket to her chest. 'I cried out for my children and my husband. The Israeli army took the father and the children, left me behind, and they were all dead." She said. About 35 people stayed in the house, some having been evacuated from other areas. All were civilians, mostly children, and none were armed. Rania and her husband Wissam, both 29 years old, have been trying to conceive for 10 years, two IVF attempts failed, but after the third IVF, they found out they were pregnant in early 2023 and gave birth to twins on October 13.

　Israeli airstrikes have regularly struck crowded homes since the war in Gaza began, and although declared a safe zone by Israel in October, Rafah was also the target of a devastating ground assault. The bombing came without warning, in the middle of the night. Israeli forces deployed fighter jets, tunnels, and rocket launchers in the densely populated residential area. The Israeli military excused the harm to civilian Palestinians as being caused by the militant group Hamas. The Israeli military muted the attack, which killed a woman and a child, and said it had taken feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm in accordance with international law.　

　On October 7, less than a week before she gave birth, Hamas-led militants launched a surprise attack in southern Israel, killing about 1,200 Israeli civilians and taking about 250 hostages, including children and newborns. Israel retaliated with a deadly and destructive military operation. According to Gaza's Ministry of Health, more than 30,000 Palestinians were killed in the war. About 80% of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been displaced from their homes, and a quarter of the population faces starvation.In February 2023, more than 12,300 Palestinian children and teenagers were killed in the war, accounting for about 43% of all casualties. Women and children accounted for three-quarters of the casualties. Women and children were the main victims, with 16,000 killed, according to the UN report. Israel showed no evidence of killing more than 10,000 Hamas fighters; until March 2, Rafah had escaped the enormous destruction of cities in northern and southern Gaza. Rafah was in a shrinking area of Gaza where humanitarian aid could reach, and Israeli forces were targeting Rafah next.

Warning: A mother was mourning the death of her five-month-old twin babies on Sunday in Rafah, after they died in an Israeli airstrike. It took 10 years and three rounds of in vitro fertilization for Rania Abu Anza to become pregnant with a boy and a girl. (AP video/Mohammad Jahjouh)