Journalist Maha Al-Husseini said, in a report published by the Middle East Eye website, that the Israeli soldiers are in the city Gaza They shoot Palestinians from close range and kill them in front of their families.
It told the story of Moamen Raed Al-Khalidi, who remained motionless for 3 days, despite his injury, among the bodies of his family members who were killed by Israeli soldiers, pretending to be dead to protect himself from meeting the fate of his family.
Al-Husseini, also a human rights activist residing in Gaza, stated that on December 21, Israeli soldiers stormed the house where the Khalidi family took refuge in northern Gaza, and within a few minutes they opened fire on everyone present. Then they left the house thinking they had killed everyone in it. Only Momen remained alive, bleeding for several days before the neighbors found him and took him to the hospital.
From his hospital bed at Al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City, he told the British website what happened that day.
Al-Khalidi and his family had gone to their relatives’ house in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, north of Gaza City, after they were forced to evacuate their home.
Al-Khalidi tells that on that fateful day, after sunset, the family had performed their prayers, spread out on the floor together and prepared to sleep, when suddenly Israeli soldiers blew up the front door and stormed the house.
Al-Khalidi said, “Everyone who was at the scene was injured immediately, including two women, my grandmother, and another pregnant woman.”
Pretending to be dead
Israeli soldiers, addressing the family in Hebrew, ordered everyone to evacuate the house. Since no one spoke Hebrew, the family members did not understand the orders.
Al-Khalidi said, “The soldiers did not speak Arabic. We did not understand what they were saying in Hebrew. So my grandfather tried to translate. He only said a few words: ‘Listen to what the soldiers are saying and get out.'”
Al-Khalidi added, “The soldiers turned around and thought it was my father who was speaking, so they shot him, killing him on the spot.” The soldiers then shot everyone in the room, including Al-Khalidi.
Al-Khalidi continued, “Then my grandfather was martyred, followed by my uncle, then two other men who had also taken refuge in the house with us, then one of the owners of the house, and after that my grandmother and the pregnant woman were martyred.”
The newspaper states that after he was shot and injured in his leg, Al-Khalidi lay still on the ground, pretending to be dead, to avoid further gunfire from the soldiers.
Al-Khalidi said, “I was protecting myself by staying in a place between my uncle’s back and the wall. I was protecting my head in this position. I stayed like that for 3 days, pretending to be dead. During that period, soldiers were entering and leaving and destroying the house, but I stayed, pretending to be dead. After 3 days, he transferred me.” People with my family members who were martyrs to the hospital.”
The journalist also tells us that on December 22, in the same neighborhood where the Al-Khalidi family was executed, his 6-year-old relative, Faisal Ahmed Al-Khalidi, survived a similar incident after Israeli soldiers killed his parents in front of him at his uncle’s house.
Faisal told the website, “We were at home, and the tank was stationed at the door of the building. One night, they broke down the gate and stormed the building. My uncle Muhammad’s apartment was locked, so they broke the door and entered. They shot everyone in the guest room.”
He added, “We were sleeping, and I heard their noise, so I asked my mother about this sound. She told me, ‘These are Israeli soldiers.’ As soon as she said that, they shot her and then my father.”
Disabled children
The soldiers then ordered the rest of Faisal’s family to gather in one room, leaving the children to watch from the corridor. Faisal was injured by a fragment of the bullet that killed his parents, but the shock made him unable to feel the wound at the time.
Faisal says, “We hid in my cousin Layan’s bedroom, then we headed to the door. I was unable to walk, and I was falling repeatedly, so my uncle Muhammad carried me, and then the soldiers ordered him and Layan’s grandfather to take off their clothes. They ordered them to sit, and we all went to sit in the corridor.”
After the soldiers left the house, the family took refuge in a school, and only then did Faisal feel pain in his stomach. They took off his clothes and found that he was injured and took him to the hospital.
Another story told by Al-Husseini: A week after that incident, and a few kilometers away, Israeli soldiers executed Kamel Muhammad Nofal, 65 years old, a retired employee of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Refugees (RWA).UNRWA), in front of his wife and adult disabled children, while “he was trying to explain to them that his children did not understand the instructions,” according to Jamal Naeem’s relative.
Naeem told Middle East Eye, “The occupation forces arrived at the building where Kamel and his family lived, and ordered everyone to evacuate the building, so they all went down and gathered in the street in front of the building.”
According to Naeem, 3 of Kamel’s children were deaf and mute, and his fourth daughter was disabled. He said, “The soldiers gave them instructions about where they would go and what they would do,” but Kamel’s children did not understand the instructions because of their condition, so the soldiers arrested them.
When Kamel tried to speak to the soldiers in Hebrew about the condition of his children, they killed him immediately in front of the children and everyone. Naim stated that Israeli soldiers later detained Nofal’s children and the rest of the family, and their current whereabouts remain unknown.
