A Massacre by Any Other Name Would Still Sound as Sour

I'm feeling depressed after reading the latest story out of the Occupied Territories. In a new assault on Gaza, an Israeli airstrike killed a mother and four of her young children from the Abu Maateq family eating breakfast on Monday. It also killed a 17 year old walking past the house at that moment.

The image I've included here is of the kind that Europeans probably only see at the World Press Photo awards or in galleries- newspapers there don't seem to include horrific pictures like this. The Arab media, rightfully or wrongfully, always includes graphic photos of death and destruction. I would have liked to have had a bigger picture, because it is a powerful photograph- The Daily Star had a large reprint on its front cover:I stared at it for about 3 minutes. It is beautiful, which is of course not the right word. Beautiful because its so tragic- those children are symbols of the collective punishment the Palestinian people face everyday. According to the article in the Daily Star,

"The Israeli military later said the explosion that killed the Abu Maateq family was the result of a strike on Palestinian militants carrying explosives.
"The [army] targeted from the air two Palestinian gunmen" who were approaching soldiers "while carrying large bags on their backs," the army said in a statement. "A big explosion erupted on the scene, following the attack against the two, indicating the presence of bombs and explosives in the gunmen's bags."
Palestinian witnesses disputed that account, insisting that the house was more than a kilometer from the scene of the clashes and that the explosion was caused by an Israeli missile fired by an aerial drone.
No armed men were killed or wounded in the explosion at the house, and an AFP correspondent who arrived at the scene shortly after the strike saw shrapnel from an Israeli missile amid the wreckage inside."

The IOF (otherwise known as the IDF) says that it is Hamas' fault civilians get killed because 'terrorists' use civilian areas to fight from. Last time I checked, I didn't see the Israelis giving the 'terrorists' anywhere else to fight- considering the Palestinians lack a properlly equipped army, are denied freedom of movement, and their destiny is controlled by occupying soldiers, is it any surprise they are fighting from the only areas available to them, civilian areas? From where exactly does the IOF expect the Palestinian resistance to fight from? The moon? If the Palestinians were allowed passports and were able to get there, they might. Nothing the IOF says to try to cover its horrendous mistake will justify this brutal extermination of an entire generation of a family- those children were the future of Palestine. Their lives were snuffed out way before they had a chance to change their miserable and hateful worlds.