GAZA CITY — As sunset approached Sunday, a steady stream of men walked the darkening streets toward Gaza City's Al Nafaq district to pay their respects to the Atallah family.
In an open-air enclosure up a side street, dozens of mourners sat on plastic chairs. A loudspeaker blared a sermon lamenting the misfortunes of a family that lost six members in an Israeli airstrike.
"I ask God to take them into heaven. I ask God to give their relatives patience," the imam said. He then struck an angrier, more defiant tone. "Every martyr gives birth to 1,000 more martyrs! We liberated Gaza, and soon we will liberate Jerusalem!"
As the surging conflict between Israel and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip continued for a fifth day, residents here paused to bury their dead while the casualty toll continued to rise around them.
Several times during the Atallah family's memorial, loud booms could be heard nearby as more missiles struck.
Aircraft continued to pound what Israel says are militant strongholds and sites used to launch rockets at Israeli towns Sunday, before troops withdrew from the territory today.
Israel launched the latest incursion into Gaza in an attempt to stop such attacks. Thousands of rockets have struck Israeli communities near the coastal strip in the last seven years, killing 13 people.
Palestinian officials said at least 12 people were killed Sunday, most of them militants fighting in Jabaliya. The Palestinian death toll since the fighting surged Wednesday is at least 110, a number the Health Ministry in Gaza says includes 39 civilians. Two Israeli soldiers have died in the assault, and an Israeli civilian was killed last week by a rocket attack on his town.
The Israeli military says it does not target civilian sites, but attacks by warplanes and tanks in the crowded strip make such casualties almost inevitable.
At least 10 people from three generations were in the Atallah household when the missile struck Saturday just before sunset.
Medhat Abdullah, a relative of the family, was at work nearby when he heard the news. He arrived to find the home almost flattened, the walls collapsed and the ceiling caved.
"It's a massacre. When you kill a whole family, what else do you call it?" he asked. "What am I supposed to do? Forgive [the Israelis]?"
