Daughter Of Prominent Palestinian Poet Killed In Israeli Airstrike In Gaza

Shaima Refaat Alareer, the daughter of a prominent Palestinian poet, was killed alongside her family in an Israeli airstrike on a house west of Gaza City on Friday, according to multiple sources, four months after her father died in a similar attack. Alareer’s husband and their two-month-old son also died in the strike, according to eyewitnesses and family friends.

Eyewitnesses in Al-Rimal neighborhood told CNN that three Israeli missiles struck a home where the family were sheltering.

When asked for comment about the strike, the Israel Defense Forces told CNN it follows international law and tries to “mitigate civilian harm,” but was unable to provide further comment without exact coordinates and the time of the strike.

Shaima was the daughter of Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer, who was killed along with several other family members when an Israeli airstrike hit their home in the Shujayya neighborhood in December.

Alareer spoke to CNN in October, when he was deliberating over whether to stay at his home in Gaza City or flee further south with his wife and six children. At the time, the 44-year-old writer and academic said they had no choice but to remain in the north, as they “have nowhere else to go.”

Residents of Al-Rimal neighborhood said Shaima and her family had been displaced from their home in Shujayya nearly four months ago.

Video shot for CNN shows residents running towards the house after the strike and gathering around the bodies of those killed. Footage shows the house completely demolished.

Residents told CNN the family’s remains were taken to Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital.

Mosab Abu Toha, a Palestinian poet from Gaza and friend of Refaat who is now displaced in Cairo, told CNN that Refaat’s brother had informed him of the “devastating news of the killing of Refaat’s daughter, husband and newborn child” on Friday._CNN