Latest news with #KhatibFamily
Sky News
2 hours ago
- Politics
- Sky News
Family describe 'disbelief' after man's wife and two daughters killed in Iranian strike on Arab Israel town
Why you can trust Sky News Cups of coffee are being carefully poured into small paper cups, each one served with a comforting embrace. Close by, huddled under an arched courtyard, women of all ages are sitting, grieving in their own way. Some are sobbing, others look dazed, others desperate. Their intermittent wails of grief puncture the silence. Yet there's a beautiful stillness about it all. We've arrived just at the moment Tamra, Israel, has come to a standstill. Everyone here is waiting for the bodies of four members of the Khatib family to return, killed when a ballistic missile from Iran hit their home on Saturday night. Manar Khatib was killed alongside two of her daughters - 20-year-old Shada, and 13-year-old Hala - and her sister-in-law, also called Manar. Layan Diab, 23, is a cousin of the girls. She's in disbelief. "It's a deep loss. It hurts my soul. We lost our entire family. Four people here. I can't fathom it. I don't understand. It's unbelievable," she says. And she's fearful of the coming days. "Every time we hear the sirens, people start to scream and remember," she says. Tamra is a tight-knit town. Most living here are Palestinian citizens of Israel. Videos circulating online showed Jewish Israelis celebrating as the missiles fell, singing: "May your village burn." It is a reminder of the bitter divides in this society, at war on multiple fronts. "No-one is protected. Not Arabs, not Israelis, not Jews, not Palestinians, not Israelis," Layan says with a desperate frustration in her voice. Just down the street is the girls' grieving father, Raja Khatib. A lawyer with a charming warmth, he starts to speak Italian, assuming we may be from Italy. He'd just returned from a holiday there with his wife and children in Ferrara. His eyes fill with tears as he says that if only he'd stayed a day longer, they would all be alive today. 'I feel terrible. I feel fire in my body… I hope that I will survive this moment. I've lost my family, but for what? A missile from Iran?" I ask if he sees an end to this conflict between Iran and Israel. He seems despairing. "Conflict with Iran, Lebanon, Gaza. We have a government who want[s] war. We want peace. We want to live." 3:08 Listening in supportively from the side is his middle daughter, 17-year-old Razan, who miraculously survived the blast. That evening, she'd been out to buy cookies with her sisters. When they returned, Razan and her older sister Shada played music and watched videos on their phones. When the alarms started to sound, they dismissed them at first. But after a loud boom, Razan was unsettled and started to make her way to one of the safe rooms, imploring Shada to do the same. But only Razan went. 0:24 "In one moment, everything went dark. I couldn't see anything. I asked Allah, please don't take my life," she describes with searing clarity. She could hear her father calling out for them all. But his cries were met with silence. Razan's family home is now a mound of rubble. When we arrive there, we find neighbours and friends clearing the rubble. Many are deeply traumatised. Hamad, who's sweeping debris outside the house opposite, tells me he saw body parts flung across the road and into a nearby garden, and there's blood on the walls. It is a deeply visceral and harrowing account of an attack that took everyone by surprise. This is a residential neighbourhood. It's thought the missile was bound for Haifa, more than an hour away and home to oil refineries. But this time, with this missile, it fell on civilians. And took with it, futures.
Sky News
3 hours ago
- General
- Sky News
Israel-Iran live: Trump says G7 exit nothing to do with ceasefire - as Israel and Iran trade strikes
'I've lost my family, but for what?': Man's wife and two daughters killed in Iranian strike By Cordelia Lynch, Sky News correspondent in Israel Cups of coffee are being carefully poured into small paper cups, each one served with a comforting embrace. Close by, huddled under an arched courtyard, women of all ages are sitting, grieving in their own way. Some are sobbing, others look dazed, others desperate. Their intermittent wails of grief puncture the silence. Yet there's a beautiful stillness about it all. We've arrived just at the moment that the Israeli city of Tamra has come to a standstill. Everyone here is waiting for the bodies of four members of the Khatib family to return, killed when a ballistic missile from Iran hit their home on Saturday night. Manar Khatib was killed alongside two of her daughters - 20-year-old Shada, and 13-year-old Hala - and her sister-in-law, also called Manar. Layan Diab, 23, is a cousin of the girls. She's in disbelief. "It's a deep loss. It hurts my soul. We lost our entire family. Four people here. I can't fathom it. I don't understand. It's unbelievable," she says. And she's fearful of the coming days. "Every time we hear the sirens, people start to scream and remember," she says. Just down the street is the girls' grieving father, Raja Khatib. A lawyer with a charming warmth, he starts to speak Italian, assuming we may be from Italy. He'd just returned from a holiday there with his wife and children in Ferrara. His eyes fill with tears as he says that if only he'd stayed a day longer, they would all be alive today. 'I feel terrible. I feel fire in my body… I hope that I will survive this moment. I've lost my family, but for what? A missile from Iran?"
Sky News
12 hours ago
- General
- Sky News
'I've lost my family, but for what?': Man's wife and two daughters killed in Iranian strike on Israel
Cups of coffee are being carefully poured into small paper cups, each one served with a comforting embrace. Close by, huddled under an arched courtyard, women of all ages are sitting, grieving in their own way. Some are sobbing, others look dazed, others desperate. Their intermittent wails of grief puncture the silence. Yet there's a beautiful stillness about it all. We've arrived just at the moment Tamra, Israel, has come to a standstill. Everyone here is waiting for the bodies of four members of the Khatib family to return, killed when a ballistic missile from Iran hit their home on Saturday night. Manar Khatib was killed alongside two of her daughters - 20-year-old Shada, and 13-year-old Hala - and her sister-in-law, also called Manar. Layan Diab, 23, is a cousin of the girls. She's in disbelief. "It's a deep loss. It hurts my soul. We lost our entire family. Four people here. I can't fathom it. I don't understand. It's unbelievable," she says. And she's fearful of the coming days. "Every time we hear the sirens, people start to scream and remember," she says. Just down the street is the girls' grieving father, Raja Khatib. A doctor with a charming warmth, he starts to speak Italian, assuming we may be from Italy. He'd just returned from a holiday there with his wife and children in Ferrara. His eyes fill with tears as he says that if only he'd stayed a day longer, they would all be alive today. 'I feel terrible. I feel fire in my body… I hope that I will survive this moment. I've lost my family, but for what? A missile from Iran?" I ask if he sees an end to this conflict between Iran and Israel. He seems despairing. "Conflict with Iran, Lebanon, Gaza. We have a government who want[s] war. We want peace. We want to live." 3:08 Listening in supportively from the side is his middle daughter, 17-year-old Razan, who miraculously survived the blast. That evening, she'd been out to buy cookies with her sisters. When they returned, Razan and her older sister Shada played music and watched videos on their phones. When the alarms started to sound, they dismissed them at first. But after a loud boom, Razan was unsettled and started to make her way to one of the safe rooms, imploring Shada to do the same. But only Razan went. 0:24 "In one moment, everything went dark. I couldn't see anything. I asked Allah, please don't take my life," she describes with searing clarity. She could hear her father calling out for them all. But his cries were met with silence. Razan's family home is now a mound of rubble. When we arrive there, we find neighbours and friends clearing the rubble. Many are deeply traumatised. Ammad, who's sweeping debris outside the house opposite, tells me he saw body parts flung across the road and into a nearby garden, and there's blood on the walls. It is a deeply visceral and harrowing account of an attack that took everyone by surprise. This is a residential neighbourhood. It's thought the missile was bound for Haifa, more than an hour away and home to oil refineries. But this time, with this missile, it fell on civilians. And took with it, futures.
CNN
a day ago
- Politics
- CNN
Iranian strikes expose bomb shelter shortage for Palestinian towns inside Israel
In a small, tight-knit town near Haifa in northern Israel, residents here never thought they would experience such horror. Inhabited by Palestinian citizens of Israel, Tamra was left shaken after an Iranian missile struck a residential building late Saturday evening, killing four civilians, Israel's national emergency service Magen David Adom (MDA) reported. The rocket struck a home belonging to the Khatib family at around 11:50pm, according to emergency responders. Manar Khatib, a local teacher, and her two daughters Shatha, 13, and Hala, 20, as well their relative Manar Diab were all killed instantly. Manar's husband Raja and their youngest daughter Razan both survived. Over the last 20 months of war, rockets have occasionally been launched from across Lebanon's border into northern Israel. But Tamra has never taken a hit like this – until hostilities with Iran erupted into direct strikes between the two countries this week. The morning after, the mood in the Lower Galilee town was somber, compounded by anger over a lack of adequate bomb shelters, an issue that Palestinian citizens of Israel have long warned was a glaring inequality that exists throughout their communities. The street where the missile landed was filled with bulldozers trying to clear the debris. Many cars were burned from the impact, with glass shattered all around. Residents and volunteers gathered around to offer support and condolences. The buildings next to the Khatib home had sustained some damage, and almost every home had its windows blown out. 'When we heard the strike, everyone in the village headed there to help. It was a very difficult and chaotic evening. We found body parts littered across the street, and very tragic sights we didn't want to see,' Mohammad Diab, an emergency rescue volunteer told CNN. Diab said it was difficult to reach the family because of the intensity of the impact. Emergency responders searched for survivors trapped under the 'heavy destruction' of the three-story building. For 25-year-old neighbor Mohammad Shama, Saturday night was 'terrifying'. 'As soon as the escalations began with Iran, we knew the situation would be dangerous, but we didn't think the danger would come this close to us,' he told CNN. He rushed to his neighbors' home as soon as he heard the blast and tried to help retrieve the bodies. The only reason the Khatib family's youngest daughter survived was because she was sleeping in the room the house uses as a shelter, he said. But not every home in Tamra even has a shelter. Only 40% of Tamra's 37,000 residents have either a safe room or a functioning shelter, the town's mayor Musa Abu Rumi told CNN. And there are no bunkers or public shelters which are otherwise ubiquitous across most Israeli towns and cities. In the wake of the attack, his municipality decided to open up educational facilities in Tamra to be used as shelters for whoever didn't feel safe sleeping at home. 'The government has never financed the construction of shelters in our town, because they have other priorities,' he said. Several government ministers have visited Tamra in the wake of the attack, and Abu Rumi said others are planning to visit in the coming week. He told CNN he wants to take advantage of that to raise the issue of neglect in Tamra, and 'bridging the gap between Jewish Israelis and Palestinian citizens of Israel'. The Israel Democracy Institute (IDI), an independent research center published a report in the wake of the Tamra attack, describing how 'Arab communities remain unaddressed' almost two years since the outbreak of war. The report points to the 'significant gaps in protection' between Arab and Jewish communities. Civil defense capabilities are built into the infrastructure of Israel. Israeli law requires all homes, residential buildings, and industrial building built since the early 1990s to have bomb shelters. These shelters prove crucial to protect Israelis when warning sirens go off – providing the public with safe and fortified locations to hide from incoming rockets. However, many Palestinian towns in the country's north 'lack public shelters, protected areas, and shelter facilities,' according to a statement from the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. 'The urgency in providing such a response gains secondary validity in light of the fact that the main disparity in the field of defense in the northern district is within Arab towns,' the statement continued. Local resident Shama conceded that there is neglect in Tamra and said he suspects it's because of racism. In many ways, the Tamra strike has highlighted not just the tragedies of this war, but also increasingly embittered fault lines and divisions in Israeli society and governance. In a neighboring town called Mitzpe Aviv, social media video verified by CNN showed Jewish Israelis rejoicing over the rockets raining down on Tamra this weekend, shouting 'may your village burn!' Knesset member Dr. Ahmad Tibi told CNN scenes like that were the 'result of the culture of racism that has spread in Israeli society and the escalating fascism.' Another Knesset member, Naama Lazimi, condemned the video on X, writing; 'shame and disgust.' On the lack of shelters, Lazimi added that 'this is an even greater shame because this is a state with racist and abandoning policies.' Tamra resident Nejmi Hijazi also lamented the video, telling CNN 'in your own country, you are treated as a stranger, even as an enemy, even in your blood and in your death.' Social media videos showing Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem hailing Iran's attacks on Tel Aviv have also circulated. One resident was apprehended and taken in for questioning, according to Jerusalem District Police – a move that national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir applauded, warning that 'anyone who celebrates with the enemy will be punished!' As the threat of more strikes continues to fuel fears in Israel, the residents of Tamra are left feeling anxious. 'Last night was one of the most difficult nights I have ever experienced. I can't forget the image of the little girl I saw trapped under the rubble,' Manal Hijazi, a neighbor told CNN. Hijazi described the Khatibs as some of the nicest and most loving people in the neighborhood. Manar had taught most residents in Tamra. One of her former students is Raghda, a neighbor whose house was also damaged by the Saturday blast. 'I was in bed with my three daughters when the rocket struck. The window blasted open and I got hit by dust and rocket remnants. That happened all in front of my eyes, with my daughters right next to me,' Raghda told CNN, teary and shaking. Raghda described the horror she felt cradling her 4-month-old daughter throughout the attack. She said her daughters were shocked and remained silent for many hours. 'There is no way I will be sleeping at home tonight,' she said. CNN's Dana Karni contributed to this report.
National Post
2 days ago
- Politics
- National Post
Iranian missile bombardment kills 11 Israelis, injures hundreds more
At least 11 people were killed overnight Saturday in a wave of Iranian missile attacks on civilian areas across Israel. Article content Seven people were killed when an apartment building in Bat Yam, just south of Tel Aviv, sustained a direct hit, according to the Magen David Adom emergency medical service. A four-year-old girl and a 10-year-old boy are among the dead. Article content Article content Rescue efforts are ongoing at the scene, where two people remained unaccounted for beneath the rubble after four of the missing were found at hospitals. At least 180 others were wounded in the strike, according to Daniel Hadad, Ayalon region director of the Israel Defence Forces' Home Front Command. Article content Article content Four members of the Khatib family were killed in Tamra, a village in the Lower Galilee, 12 miles east of Acre, when an Iranian missile hit their residence. The victims were identified as Manar Khatib, 45, her daughters Shada, 20, and Hala, 13, and their relative, Manal Khatib, 41. Fourteen others were wounded in the strike. Article content Article content A missile strike in Haifa injured 13 people, all of whom were reported to be in moderate or mild condition. Article content Meanwhile, in Rehovot in central Israel, a direct hit on a building left 37 people wounded, two seriously, Magen David Adom said. The Weizmann Institute of Science in the same city said that several of its buildings were damaged by the missile barrage, but that there were no casualties, adding that the institute is in contact with security and emergency services to ensure the safety of its staff and campus. Article content The IDF Home Front Command was continuing to operate at the impact zones in Bat Yam, Tamra and Rehovot on Sunday morning. Article content The Ministry of Welfare and Social Affairs announced that 742 citizens were left homeless following the overnight attacks, many of whom were evacuated by the Home Front Command to hotels across the country. Article content Article content Nearly 80 missiles were fired at Israel in two barrages, according to estimates in the defence establishment, Israeli media reported on Sunday. About 40 missiles were fired at the north, and approximately 35 missiles targeted the central region. Article content Earlier, between Friday and early Saturday morning, three more civilians were killed by Iranian ballistic missile attacks on central Israel. Article content 'A very sad and difficult morning. Our brothers and sisters were murdered and injured last night in heinous Iranian attacks against the civilian population in Bat Yam, Tamra and other communities,' Israeli President Isaac Herzog said on Sunday. Article content 'Jews and Arabs, longtime citizens and new immigrants, including children and the elderly, women and men. I share in the families' deep sorrow and mourn this terrible loss. I pray for the recovery of the wounded and the safe return of the missing. We will mourn together. We will overcome together,' he added.
