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No escape for civilians in Gaza

Al-Monitor reports from the scene of several bombings as Israel's bombardment of Gaza's civilian areas continues.

The mother of one of the four Palestinian children from the Bakr family, whom medics said were killed by a shell fired by an Israeli naval gunboat, grieves outside the morgue in Gaza City, July 16, 2014. — REUTERS/Finbarr O'Reilly

GAZA CITY/RAFAH, Gaza Strip — All one can do in the Gaza Strip these days is count how many children have been killed by Israel’s attacks. Four such children — Ismail Bakr, 9, Atef Bakr, 10, Zachariah Bakr, 10, and Mohammed Bakr, 11 — were killed on July 16 as they were playing on the beach. The number of children killed stands, at the time of writing, at 53 from a total number of 237 martyrs and more than 1,700 injured since Israel launched its war on July 8.

Al-Monitor arrived at the scene as soon as the shelling of the beach was heard. We were close to the area where the children were playing and saw the ambulances transporting their bodies, which had been lying on the sand scattered like broken dolls minutes before.

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