Gaza Mourns Bombing Victims; Israel Hastens to Explain
A man held aloft the tiny body of the youngest victim, 2-month-old Dina Mattar, wrapped in a Palestinian flag, her small face visible. She was killed along with her mother and four siblings when upper-story rooms in their building collapsed.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, in a formal written statement issued by his office early in the day, described the airstrike as "one of our major successes."

"We launched a precision attack," General Harel said at the briefing. "Only this house was hit, the house collapsed and this mastermind terrorist died. Unfortunately, along with him died several civilians, apparently innocent, and we are very sorry for it."

Later in the briefing, a senior military official told the journalists, none of whom had been in Gaza during the day: "This was the only house that collapsed. It's not clear to us right now where the other casualties were. There was no intention of killing people in the area. We did not estimate that houses in the area would be seriously damaged or collapse. Our assessment was that the damage to them would be minor."

But in Gaza City there was a large flat area in the middle of a street of densely packed apartment houses. Neighbors said there had been three buildings on the spot, one of three stories, and two of two stories.

All that remained were chunks of cinder block, several stumps of what had been pillars, pulverized lumps of concrete with twisted snarls of what had been iron reinforcement bars poking out of them, remnants of plumbing pipes and scraps of clothing.

A half-dozen buildings in an arc around the hole were badly damaged, chunks of their sides ripped off and floors partly destroyed.

At the Israeli briefing this afternoon, a senior military official explained that the reason for using the F-16 instead of an Apache helicopter was: "An Apache missile does nothing to a two-story building. We had to collapse it and make it rubble."

No one even heard the F-16 approaching, survivors said. People had put their children to bed and were chatting in family groups, watching television or preparing to switch off the lights.

"We felt it was safe — we were laughing, watching TV," said the family matriarch, Halima Mattar, breaking into sobs. "I could see all the floors coming down. How can I tell my son he lost his wife and his children?"

The attack came just a day after Sheik Yassin had outlined, in several well-publicized interviews, conditions under which Hamas might consider a cease-fire. The conditions included an Israeli military pullback and an end to pinpoint killings of militants.

Certainly there was little sentiment for a cease-fire on the streets today. Black-masked fighters of the Qassam Brigades swaggered among the mourners, brandishing AK-47 assault rifles and rocket launchers. Sound trucks from different Palestinian movements blared calls for jihad and martyrdom. A statement from the Brigades warned, "We will not rest until we have our revenge, until we see Zionist body parts in every restaurant, bus stop, buses and sidewalk."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/24/international/europe/24MIDE.html