Twenty-seven people who were among the migrants who died when their boat was rammed last week came from the same family of four boys killed in an Israel airsrike on Gaza in July.

Between 300 and 500 migrants, many of them Palestinians, are feared to have died when their boat was reportedly rammed after they refused to get into a smaller boat.

The incident happened some 300 miles south east of Malta. Three survivors were brought to Malta.

ITV news reported today that death appears to be stalking the family of the four young Palestinian boys who were killed in the airstrike while playing hide and seek.

Ahed Bakr, the father of 10-year-old Zacharia, who died on the beach, told the network that 27 of his relatives were feared drowned.

“We don’t know why this is happening to us. Why our family? What has our family done?” he asked.

Isam Abu-Shamala, who lost two cousins in the sinking, told ITV that the dead were young people who have known nothing but war.
For them the perilous journey out of Gaza was a risk worth taking. But for many of the loved ones they left behind suffering has been heaped upon suffering.

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