Mood:  celebratory

An IAF Apache helicopter flying over Gaza fired a missile and struck a vehicle traveling on the coastal road and carrying the Palestinian terrorists. According to witnesses, one of the victims was decapitated and one was wearing military fatigues.

Military sources said the targeted terrorist was Sheikh Muhammad Khalil, a senior commander of Islamic Jihad in the southern Gaza Strip who was responsible for planning a slew of attacks on Israelis including the murder of Tali Hatuel, who was pregnant, and her four young daughters on the Kissufim road in Gush Katif. He was also behind the attack on the Morag outpost that killed three soldiers and the detonation of an IDF armored vehicle that killed five.

Khalil's bodyguard was also killed in the attack.

An Israeli woman in her eighth month of pregnancy and her four daughters were killed this afternoon [2 May 2004] when two terrorists opened fire at Israeli cars traveling on the Kissufim-Gush Katif road in the Gaza Strip. Soldiers shot the terrorists dead, but only after an explosive device at the scene detonated, wounding three soldiers, two of them with moderate-to-serious injuries.

The victims of the attack were identified as Tali Hatuel, 34, and her daughters Hila (11), Hadar (9), Roni (7) and Merav (2). Tali's husband was not in the car at the time of the attack, ynet reported. The Hatuels lived on the Gush Katif settlement of Katif.

It was also learned that the terrorists not only murdered the 34-year-old mother of four who was eight months pregnant along with her children, but then ran up to the vehicle and took a video of the results of their actions, filming the young victims as they bled to death.