The hardest hit in the Israel Defense Forces artillery strike on a Gaza beach Friday was the Ghalia family, which lost six members, among them the father, one of his two wives, an infant boy and an 18-month-old girl.
Less than two years ago, four members of the family were killed when IDF shell hit the family farm in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahia. The military had been targeting the area in response to Palestinian mortar fire.
Ali Ghalia, a Palestinian farmer, had taken his two wives and nine children on a trip to the beach, and the family was enjoying a picnic when the IDF artillery shell hit them.
'This was his first day at the beach this summer. He was taking his kids to play. It's destiny,' said Nasreen Ghalia, a sister-in-law of the father.
She said one of the survivors was a 7-year-old girl, Hadeel, who still did not know she had lost her parents and siblings. The family ordered visitors not to break the news to the girl.
Hadeel was hospitalized with shrapnel in her neck. Three half-brothers and sisters and her step-mother lay in other hospitals, some in serious condition.
'Hadeel is now an orphan,' said Nasreen, who was not at the family picnic.
With eyes welling with tears, Nasreen's husband, Ramadan, raised his hands to the skies when asked what he would do with his brother's children. 'God only knows,' he said.
'This is my place, I am not going anywhere,' Nasreen said. 'I just want the Israelis to leave us alone.'
The artillery fire scattered body parts, destroyed a tent and sent bloody sheets where the picnickers had sat flying into the air. A panicked crowd quickly gathered, screaming and running around hysterically.
Kamal Ghobn had just arrived at the beach on a bus with about 50 relatives at the time of the attack.
'I was still parking the bus and everyone got out to go to the beach. As I locked the door I felt the thud of the shells and felt a sting in my side,' said Ghobn, who was lightly wounded by shrapnel. He said he saw four shells land. No other family relatives were hurt.
Ghobn said he rushed a wounded woman in his bus to medical care.
In the aftermath of the strike, a sobbing girl lay in the sand, crying uncontrollably for her father. 'Father! Father!' she screamed, as the body of a man lay motionless in the sand nearby.
One man held the limp body of what appeared to be a girl or young woman. 'Muslims, look at this,' he cried.
The emergency services of the Palestinian hospitals were overwhelmed. An emergency doctor stood at the beach entrance, screaming at ambulances and directing traffic as the beach was still being cleaned from wounded and body parts.
The IDF frequently targets open areas in the northern Gaza Strip used by Palestinian militants to launch homemade Qassam rockets toward Israel. Repeated Israel Air Force strikes and artillery fire have done little to halt the crude rockets, which land in Israel almost daily. The rockets are highly inaccurate but have been fatal.
While Israel has urged civilians to stay away from the Qassam launching areas, there have been other civilian casualties recently. In early April, an 8-year-old girl was killed when tank shells hit her house, and last month, three family members, including a 6-year-old boy, were killed in an IDF airstrike aimed as they drove in a car.
The missile had been aimed at a militant traveling in a nearby vehicle.