Nidaa returned home exhausted from a fishing trip with her kids Yousra, Rahaf, and Naser, and started preparing supper for the toddlers, when their candlelit-house caught fire in the Israeli besieged Gaza Strip, leading to the kids death.
The three brothers aged five, three and one, burnedto death on Friday night after their home in the al-Shati refugee camp was set alight aftera candlefell on a mattress.
Gazans are mostly forced to use candles as constant power cuts leave them without electricity sometimes for some 18 hours a day.
My children died hungry, she said during the childrens funeral held on Saturday.
Following the funeral service for the toddlers, hundreds of Palestinians carrying pictures of the burned children held a protest decrying the Tel Aviv regimes blockade.
The enclaves electricity was partially supplied by its single remaining power plant until last month when fuel shortages caused the plants closure. The remainder ofelectricity is purchased from Israel and Egypt.
Reports blame fuel shortageon the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authoritys recent removal of fueltax exemption, demanding that the Gaza-based Hamas resistance movement pay taxes on fuel imports to the coastal strip.
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="555"]
Palestinian children look through a hole in a wall at a burned bedroom where three children were killed by candle sparked on their family house in the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, Saturday, May 7, 2016.[/caption]Gazan energy authorities, however, say they cannot afford their tax bill, which adds up tosome 10 million shekels (2.6 million dollars) a month.
The Gaza Strip has been under an Israeli siege since June 2007. The blockade has caused a decline in the standards of living as well as unprecedented levels of unemployment and unrelenting poverty.
Israel has also waged three wars on Gaza since 2008, including the 2014 offensive, which left more than 2,200 Palestinians dead and over 11,100 others injured.
By Press TV
