Gaza beachfront picnic ends in carnage

This image grab taken from TV footage shows a girl weeps next to the body of her father killed in Israeli shelling on a beach in the northern Gaza Strip on Friday. Seven Palestinians, including two children, were killed in the Israeli shelling of the northern Gaza Strip's seafront. PHOTO: AFP

Stunned witnesses who witnessed the bloodshed first-hand recounted how the calm of a day out at the seaside turned into a scene of carnage.

While the Israeli military pledged to investigate the circumstances behind the tragedy, survivors insisted that there was no reason why the army had chosen to target the area, causing the complete wipe-out of one family.

The five members of the Ghali family, who were enjoying a picnic on the beach, were all killed instantly when Israeli shells landed on the beach in the later afternoon: husband and wife Ali and Raisa and their three children aged one, three and ten.

Picnic hampers and red plastic sandals lay scattered on the beach where crimson blood spattered the yellow sand. Fragments of chairs had been thrown dozens of meters from the scene of the shelling.

A teenaged woman writhed and wailed in anguish next to the body of a man who had been killed in the strike.

"Father! Father!" she screamed.

Ahmed Abu Amrene, one of those who had been at the beach at the time, was still in a state of shock several hours later.

"I was swimming in the sea when we heard the sound of a shell," said the 20-year-old.

"We rushed over and saw the five members of the family dead on the sand," he recounted in a trembling voice.

Pointing towards the debris, he said: "The family was sitting right here. They were just having a meal."

A fleet of ambulances was rapidly dispatched to the scene. In less than an hour, all the seven dead and 35 other injured had been transferred to hospitals in Gaza City and the nearby Jabaliya refugee camp.