The escalating conflict between Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza has directly impacted at least one Iowan already.  Cedar Rapids Imam Ahmed Elkhaldy said he has lost three members of his extended family in Israeli airstrikes.

According to the Cedar Rapids Gazette:

“Three of my cousins just passed away in Gaza,” Imam Ahmed Elkhaldy, 34, of Cedar Rapids, said on Monday. “They were killed during the night when they were sleeping (by an Israeli weapon that) destroyed half of the building.”

Elkhaldy, president of the Muslim American Society’s Iowa Chapter, said his cousin, a physician, was the father of the other two of his relatives who died.

Elkhaldy said that before he could discuss prospects for peace or roots of the conflict, the current humanitarian crisis would need to end.

“As we are talking … and as the reader will be reading, people will be killed in Gaza by our own weapons,” Elkhaldy said, referring to arms supplied to Israel by the United States. “What I care about right now is that there are innocent people under attack.”