Operation Cast Lead Part 10 Fires Were Everywhere
Amnesty International reported: “Ala’ Mortaja, a 26-year-old radio journalist, was killed and his mother gravely injured when a tank shell struck his home, in the al-Zaytoun neighbourhood of Gaza City, at about 5.30 p.m. on the 9th of January 2009. The shell first struck the room in which Ala’ and his mother were present, seriously wounding Ala’ and his mother. Ala’ died later that day of his wounds and his mother lost a leg and sustained other shrapnel wounds.”
One IDF soldier reported: “The battalion commander said there would be lots and lots of terrorists and we should really watch out but don’t worry, everyone will have taken plenty of people down. At the briefing, I think it was the day we were about to go on to another mission, he was talking about our going into Gaza, and there will be plenty of terrorists for everyone. Everyone was disappointed about not engaging anyone. You go crazy and are dying for something to happen already. Some soldiers from Sderot and the southern Israeli localities also want to take revenge (for the rocket shelling on their hometown) on terrorists. So, the company commander said, “Don’t worry, once we go in you’ll have no space left on your rifle butt, you’ll have to mark your X-s on your shirt sleeves...””
According to Amnesty International: “Randa Salha, a 34- year-old mother of seven, was killed with four of her children — one-year-old Roula, Baha al-Din, aged four, Rana, 12, and Diya’ al-Din, 14, when Israeli forces bombed her home in the Beit Lahia Housing Project (Mashru’a Beit Lahia) in the middle of the night on the 9th of January 2009. Randa’s 22-year-old sister Fatma was also killed in the attack. Only women and children were in the house at the time: Randa and her seven children, her sister and her sister-in-law and her two children, who were staying there because they thought it would be safer than their own homes. Randa’s husband, Fayez Salha, an employee of UNRWA, was at work. The family was seemingly alerted when a missile hit the roof, a new practice by Israeli forces that came to be known during Operation Cast Lead as the “knock on the roof” procedure. This involves firing a “teaser missile”, seemingly containing little or no explosive, at the roof of a house in order to scare the inhabitants into fleeing their home. The building is then targeted a few minutes later with a large bomb launched from an F-16 aircraft. Randa and Fayez’s two surviving daughters, 10-year old Rouba and nine-year-old Rasha, told Amnesty International delegates that they and their mother, siblings, aunts and cousins had scrambled to get out of the house. They had run out first and so survived, while their mother, siblings and one aunt had only managed to get out of the house. They had run out first and so survived, while their mother, siblings and one aunt had only managed to get to the bottom of the stairs when the house was bombed.”
Human Rights Watch reported: “The IDF’s assault on Khuza’a began around 9:30 p.m. on the 10th of January, with an intense artillery barrage in the area, including white phosphorus shells bursting over the al-Najjar district, inhabited primarily by a family of that name. According to three residents, interviewed separately, white phosphorus shells exploded above private homes, showering the area with burning wedges. Some homes in the area caught on fire, and neighbors helped each other to extinguish the flames.”
“Local resident Iman al-Najjar, 30, told Human Rights Watch how white phosphorus shells struck around her house: “That night, starting around 9:30, they began to fire phosphorus randomly. Almost all the houses here got their share ... We thought it was fog but it was smoke. It was hard to breath. We tried to put out the fire. The whole neighborhood came out ... Two phosphorus pieces landed in my house and it was on fire. People were choking, so we went to the neighbor’s house.””
Amnesty International reported: “In one home, 47-year- old Hanan al-Najjar, a mother of four, was killed by one such shell. She and her family had fled their home further east and were staying with relatives in a more built-up residential area, thinking that they would be safer there. On the evening of the 10th of January 2009, the area was shelled with white phosphorus. Hanan’s husband and children told Amnesty International that one of the artillery shells, after having discharged the white phosphorus wedges, crashed through the roof of the house and travelled through two rooms and exploded in the hall. A large fragment hit Hanan in the chest, almost severing the upper part of her body. She was killed instantly, in front of her children and relatives, most of whom were injured. Her four children all sustained burns. Her seven-year-old daughter, Aya, also suffered a broken arm, and her cousin Ihsan, 26, lost her right eye.”
When Majid al-Najjar went inside his house he saw that a shell had struck his wife Hanan directly in the chest. He showed Human Rights Watch a photo of Hanan that he had taken on his mobile phone, in which her chest had been cut open. Human Rights Watch also saw his injured daughter Aya, who had a cast on her right arm.
““We took them to Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, ‘Majid al-Najjar said. “The ambulance came after one hour. We were 10 people in the ambulance, and my dead wife too.” ... The day after the attack, on the 11th of January, IDF forces moved into the al- Najjar district of Khuza’a for the first time. From approximately 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. they stayed on the edge of the village, residents and local human rights activists said, and several homes were bulldozed. The IDF returned around 3 a.m. on the 12th of January and destroyed some more homes but withdrew again around noon. The next assault took place around midnight on the 13th of January, with heavy shelling, including the extensive use of air burst white phosphorus. Ismail Khadr, a 50-year-old farmer, described what happened during the attack. “When the phosphorus landed we were on an island of smoke,” he said. “Fires were everywhere and reached waist high. The pieces were like foam. Some of my farm was burned.””
The Goldstone Report takes up the narrative: “At some point between 7 and 7.45 a.m., Rouhiyah al-Najjar and the women in her immediate neighborhood decided to leave their homes and walk with their children to the town center. The group of women was headed by Rouhiyah al-Najjar and her 23-year-old neighbor and relative Yasmine al-Najjar, both carrying white flags. Rouhiyah’s daughter Hiba was right behind her. Other women were holding up babies in their arms, shouting “God is great!” and “We have children!” The group of women and children started moving down a straight alley, about six or seven meters wide, flanked on both sides by houses. At the other end of the alley, a little more than 200 meters away, was the house of Faris al-Najjar, which had been occupied by numerous Israeli soldiers (around 60 according to one witness). The soldiers had made a hole in the wall of the first floor of the house, giving them a good view down the alley into which the group of women and children were advancing. When Rouhiyah al-Najjar was about 200 meters from Faris al-Najjar’s house, a shot fired from that house hit her in the temple (she had just turned her head towards her neighbor next to her to encourage her). Rouhiyah al-Najjar fell to the ground; Yasmine was struck in her leg. This single shot was followed by concentrated gunfire, which forced the group of women and children to scramble back into the houses of Osama al-Najjar and Shawki al-Najjar, though it did not cause further injury.”