Gaza: Palestinian family mourns 48 dead

[Joanne98]

Members of a Palestinian family which lost 48 members in Israel's military assault on Gaza have given their first full account of the bloodshed.

The sight of her dead four-year-old son's blood splashed on a breeze-block wall was enough to start Zinad Samouni sobbing.

But the 35-year-old Palestinian mother of eight then composed herself to give the most complete first hand allegation yet of atrocities committed by Israeli forces when they occupied the village of Zeitoun on the outskirts of Gaza City.

Standing in the wreckage of her home she described the cold-blooded shooting of her 46-year-old husband, Atiyeh, and her son, Ahmed, in an incident that could form the core of a war crimes investigation against Israel.

The United Nations commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, has already said Israel should be investigated for what happened in Zeitoun on between Jan 4 and Jan 5.

So far dozens of bodies, mostly women, children and elderly, have been recovered, almost all from the same Samouni extended family.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/palestinianauthority/4290553/Gaza-Palestinian-family-mourns-48-dead.html

[Scurrilous]

1. Inside Gaza: Israeli troops have vanished but the damage is plain to see

Israeli forces leave trail of destruction after withdrawal back to the Gaza border

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"No Israeli forces could be seen today on the main road connecting the south and north of Gaza, but signs of the heavy toll exacted on the territory's civilian population during the three-week conflict were unmissable.

A day after Israel announced a unilateral ceasefire, one subsequently matched by Hamas, its forces appeared to have withdrawn back to Gaza's eastern border with Israel. Travelling today from Rafah, in the far south, to the edge of Gaza City, no Israeli troops or tanks could be seen.

But along the road, every police station had been destroyed and the damage increased greatly in intensity on the southern edges of Gaza City.

In Zeitoun, close to the site of the former Israeli settlement of Netzarim, abandoned in 2005, great numbers of apartment buildings and homes were damaged or completely destroyed by tank shells or machine gun fire.

Among these was a flattened house identified as having belonged to the extended Samouni family, 48 of whom are now believed to have been killed when their home was repeatedly shelled by Israeli forces, an incident first described by UN officials 10 days ago.

The shelling of the house was subsequently highlighted by Navi Pillay, the UN high commissioner for human rights, as a possible war crime. She called for an independent investigation into the incident.

Nearby was a badly damaged two-­storey breezeblock home which had clearly been used as a temporary forward base by Israeli troops. It was littered with bullet casings, empty ration packs marked with Hebrew writing and plastic waste bags.

Inside and outside the home, graffiti had been daubed in Hebrew and English, with slogans including "Arabs need to die", "Arabs: 1948 to 2009" and "Make war, not peace".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/19/gaza-israel-troops-withdrawal