Operation Cast Lead Part 11 “Draw, Cock, Kill”
Amnesty International reported: “On the 13th of January 2009 a 47-year-old woman, Rawhiya al-Najjar, was shot in the head as she walked ahead of a group of women carrying a white flag near her home in the village of Khuza’a, near Khan Yunis, in the south of Gaza. Her 14-year-old daughter Heba, who was next to her when she was shot, told Amnesty International: “The evening before, on the 12th of January, at about 11 p.m., there was shelling nearby and nobody dared to go out. The shelling caused fires and now we know it was white phosphorus, which caused the fire but at the time we did not know this. Then after a while people called to say that one of the fires was very near our house and my mother went out to put out the fire; she took a white flag to show that she was not a threat if there were soldiers in the area. She put out the fire and then came back inside. There was more shelling and then towards morning we heard bulldozers. At dawn we went up on the roof with white flags so soldiers would know that there were people in the houses. My mother told the neighbors to do the same. Neighbors were screaming, some were fleeing and others were too scared to flee because people said there were special forces, in addition to the soldiers in uniform, in our areas. The army bulldozers were demolishing houses nearby and the women and children from those houses came over to us. By about 7.30 a.m. there were many assembled at our house. At about 8 a.m. we decided to leave and go to the center of the village where we would be safe. My mother gave people white cloths to make flags and she also had a white flag and was at the front of the group. I was next to her, and Yasmine was next to her on the other side; Fatma was holding her child up. We walked a few steps and Yasmine said she saw soldiers in houses nearby. My mother turned her head to talk to the neighbors, telling them not to be afraid and at that moment she was shot in the head, on the left side, and the bullet went through and out from the right side. She fell, and Yasmine tried to help her. She was also shot in the leg. Everybody ran back. Nobody could go to help my mother or to recover her body and she lay there on the road till the evening, when the soldiers left.””
Amnesty International stated: “Dr. ‘Issa ‘Abd al-Rahim Saleh, a 32-year-old doctor, was killed on the 12th of January while attempting to rescue three residents of al-Banna Tower, a six-story apartment building in a narrow street off Zarqa Street in Jabalia, northern Gaza.”
One IDF soldier reported: “There was less talk of values, more of professionalism, not a moral issue. The difficult thing about the atmosphere was the negligible value placed on human life. People didn’t seem to be too upset about taking human lives. For some of the guys this wasn’t the first time; they had taken part in many army operations. I was upset at the talk I heard. Not the deeds I saw done. “Armed or not, incriminated or not — what difference does it make?” that’s the impression I had from what I heard. It didn’t surprise me, it was no shock because I had known these guys before, but unlike previous assignments we’d had, their finger was lighter on the trigger and that brings things out.”
Amnesty International related: “Faris Tal’at Hammouda, aged three, and his brother Muhammad, 15, died of their wounds on the 11th of January 2009 after their home, in the Shaikh ‘Ajlin area, south of Gaza City, was struck by Israeli tank shells and ambulances were not allowed to rescue them. Their parents, Tal’at As’ad Sa’adi Hammouda, aged 53, a director in the Ministry of Social Affairs, and his wife, Intisar Abd al-Wahhab Ibrahim Hammouda, 38, could do nothing and watched them die. Intisar told Amnesty International: “We were sleeping and after midnight on Sunday morning the 11th of January Israeli tanks came into our area and there was heavy tank fire. Around 2 a.m. the tank fire hit a neighboring house and scattered shrapnel on the house in the room where we were sheltering so we fled to the passage between the rooms. Then the shells came into one of the rooms and the shrapnel was falling continuously and the electricity was cut. Muhammad, my husband’s son aged 15, tried to help me light a lamp so that I could see my son Faris, who was in my arms, when another shell fell on the house and injured me and Muhammad and my son Faris, aged three. We stayed in the house until 5 a.m. as the ambulance couldn’t get to us. My husband called the Red Cross and implored them and the civil defense to come but they could not because it was so dangerous and the Red Cross told us that they had been told that there was no entry into the area while the Israeli forces were there. Muhammad died at about 5 a.m. from his wound and the heavy loss of blood. I was badly injured all over my body, in my left side, abdomen, chest, legs, and hands, and I couldn’t move until the ambulance came at 7 a.m. after the army had left the area. Faris also died. He was my only son, after 21 years of marriage.””
One IDF soldier reported: “I was very lucky being assigned to a unit with people older than myself, who’d already gone through one Intifada and half a war in Lebanon and are mentally mature enough to go through such things again and they’re not trigger-happy. I think I was lucky to work within this framework and not with my own battalion. Because I know that there, the guys were running a “Wild West” scene: draw, cock, kill.”