| [ 26/12/2010 - 11:00 AM ] |
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GAZA, (PIC)-- The Israeli bombing of civilian homes during the last war on the Gaza Strip was one of the most gruesome crimes which can never be forgotten by the survivors, although they happened two years ago. The families of Assamouni and Addaya are the most bereaved and victimized Gazans. Among hundreds of homes and families that were targeted by the Israeli occupation, the massacres that happened to the families of Assamouni and Addaya remain the most heinous in terms of the numbers of victims. A reporter of the Palestinian information center (PIC) met with Salah Assamouni, one of the survivors, and listened to details of the massacre that claimed the lives of 25 members of his family and led to the injury of many of them in Azzaytoun neighborhood in Gaza. Assamouni recalled the tragedy that happened on the forth of January 2009 in the morning and said, "I was at home along with members of my family, grandmother and my wife's mother who was visiting us when I got shrapnel in my left hand as a result of the shells and bullets fired by the Israeli occupation forces in the vicinity of the house." "A rocket-propelled projectile hit the second floor of my house and burned it; at about 8:30 am while trying to go outside carrying my six-month-old baby, I saw occupation troops deployed in the area, and after less than two hours, the troops forced us to leave the house. At the time, we had three other families [All related to Assamouni] who resorted to our home for protection," Assamouni added. "We came out after we were ordered by the occupation troops and went to the nearby home of Wael Assamouni, and therein gathered a number of Assamouni families for fear of the Israeli shelling," he said. "We stayed in this house for a full day and we were about 90 people from seven families, children, women and men without anything to eat or drink, and on that morning the area seemed calm. At about half past seven the next morning, I went out along with five others to the yard of Wael's home at a distance of three meters to bring some firewood in order to prepare food for children, but suddenly an Israeli helicopter, which did not leave the sky in the area, fired a missile at us wounding three men and killing two, Mohamed Ibrahim Assamouni and Hamdi Maher Assamouni. Then I rushed back to the house bleeding from my head, ears, legs and back," Assamouni elaborated. "Two minutes later, two missiles fell on the roof of the house penetrating it and leading to its collapse which led to the injury and death of most of the children, women and men inside the house, and I survived miraculously." Another survivor from Addaya family, Amer, also told the PIC reporter in detail the massacre that claimed the lives of 22 members of his family including his parents and a number of his brothers and sisters. He sustained serious wounds when an Israeli missile flattened the entire house over the heads of its residents. |
Israeli bombing of civilian homes in last Gaza war one of the most grisly crimes