Northern Gaza Strip – Several thousand mourners on Wednesday joined the funeral procession for the wife and baby son of Hamas’s military commander Mohammed Deif, angrily demanding revenge against Israel.
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Firing Kalashnikovs into the air, they carried the bodies of 27-year-old Widad and her seven-month-old son Ali, who were among at least four people killed in a deadly air strike on Gaza City late on Tuesday.
The two bodies were wrapped in green Hamas flags as they were carried from the mosque to the cemetery in Jabaliya refugee camp. Mourners also carried the flag-wrapped bodies of two men killed in an air strike Wednesday on a motorcycle, both presumed Hamas militants.
“Revenge, revenge, revenge,” shouted the crowd as they walked towards the cemetery waving Hamas flags and denouncing the killing of the second wife and infant son of Deif, head of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades.
“We were shocked when we heard that Mohammed Deif’s wife had been killed. We ask Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades to avenge this killing, this massacre,” said a 22-year-old mourner who gave his name as Mohammed.
“I’m like all the other people in the Gaza Strip. I am no different from the others who have lost children. This is like a tsunami,” said Widad’s angry father, Mustafa Harb Asfura, 56.
When his university-educated daughter married Deif seven years ago, her father feared it was a death sentence.
“My daughter knew she would die a martyr when she decided to marry Mohammed Deif. Every moment since then I’ve been expecting to hear that she has died,” he said.
Grief-stricken, Asfura carried his tiny grandson from the family’s small home in Jabaliya for prayers at the mosque, his body wrapped in a white sheet exposing his white face with bruising around the eyes.
Male relatives carried Widad’s body, wrapped in a green Hamas flag and white sheet, on their shoulders.
Asfura said he had only seen his son-in-law once, when the couple married.
After that, he didn’t even know where his daughter was living, such is the secrecy that surrounds Deif in his determination to avoid detection by Israel.
Widad and Deif had two daughters and a son together. She also had two sons from a first marriage, the family said.
It was not clear where the couple’s two girls were when the strike happened.
Hundreds of people crowded into the mosque for the funeral prayers but there was no sign of any Hamas officials.
Addressing the mourners, a young man passed on the condolences of the Qassam Brigades and prayers were read for two other men, who died earlier on Wednesday when a rocket hit their motorcycle in the northern town of Beit Lahiya.
A small group of women also entered the mosque to attend the prayers. Wearing black abayas, they stayed in a separate room, sobbing in grief.
They show the world that they are in grief as they lose a loved one. However, they have no regard to human values and human life. This is just a show for the world and another piece of propaganda for their cruel war machine.
Where are they sitting shiva?
Kain yovadu kol oyvachu HASHEM!
the budding young terrorist was nipped in time.
They should be screaming for revenge against hamas instead
I am writing this comment to irritate the “liberal” clowns among us, some of whom defile this website and others.
Anyone who supports the leaders of Hamas is classified as a terrorist. Perhaps this is unpopular, but I would have voted to have the funeral in Gaza bombed to smithereens. No, the victims of such bombing would not be “innocent civilians”. They are terror supporters, and need to be eradicated just as the terror leaders should be.
I hope I have provoked the liberal (in PC terms – the morally limited) commenters here.
Where is the “brave warrior”? leaving his wife and child(ren) behind??they died for him. Let him fight on the front battle lines, just like George Washington, and all great leaders of their countries!!! what a coward he is
One must assume that this leader’s devoted wife realized the risks she was taking marrying a terrorist.
So Deif’s wife & infant daughter were killed? That’s a shame. I know that I’ll have trouble sleeping tonight!
We should have bombed the funeral.