Palestinian mother who lost five-month-old twins in airstrike spent decade trying to conceive

Credit: AP

A Palestinian mother. who lost her five-month-old twins in an Israeli airstrike overnight, had spent 10 years trying to get pregnant.

Rania Abu Anza's family home in Rafah - the southernmost city in Gaza - was struck late on Saturday evening.

The destruction killed her children, her husband and 11 other relatives and leaving another nine missing under the rubble, according to survivors and local health officials.

Ms Abu Anza, 29, had woken up at around 10 pm, to breastfeed her son, Naeim, and went back to sleep with him in one arm and her daughter, Wissam, in the other. Her husband was sleeping beside them.

The explosion came an hour and a half later and the house collapsed.

“I screamed for my children and my husband,” she said, as she sobbed and cradled a baby's blanket to her chest. ”They were all dead. Their father took them and left me behind."

Ms Abu Anza and her husband spent a decade trying to conceive. They attempted three rounds of IVF before they learnt she was pregnant early last year.

The twins were born on October 13, less than a week after Hamas stormed Israel in a surprise attack.

“I didn’t get enough of them,” Ms Abu Anza said. “I swear I didn’t get enough of them.”

“We have no rights, I lost the people who were dearest to me. I don’t want to live here. I want to get out of this country. I’m tired of this war.”

Rania Abu Anza is left with nothing but the blankets her babies had been wrapped in the night they were killed. Credit: AP

Over half of Gaza's 2.3 million population has taken refuge in Rafah after being displaced from their homes.

It was previously declared a 'safe zone' by Israel in October but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the city the next target of the ground offensive.

Of the 14 people killed in the Abu Anza house, six were children and four were women, according to Dr. Marwan al-Hams, director of the hospital where the bodies were taken.

In addition to her husband and children, Rania also lost a sister, a nephew, a pregnant cousin and other relatives.

Ms Abu Anza spent a decade trying to conceive her children, who were born on October 13 last year. Credit: AP

Farouq Abu Anza, a relative, said about 35 people were staying at the house, some of whom had been displaced from other areas.

He said they were all civilians, mostly children, and that there were no militants among them. The Israeli military has not commented on the strike.

Israel says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames their deaths on the Hamas militant group because it positions fighters, tunnels and rocket launchers in dense residential areas.

But the military rarely comments on individual strikes.

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