Imagine over 40 Members of Your Extended Family Killed in One Day

Most major religions in our world believe one being or phenomenon created all people. Many Buddhists believe we are all one. Christians, Jews and Muslims believe the same god created all the people on Earth.

I ask you, if you are capable of feeling empathy, to read this story and imagine it happened to over 40 members of your extended family, by a military force that is occupying your land, the very land your grandparents and their grandparents lived on:

Dazed and dirty, 9-year-old Abdullah Samouni walks around the ruined landscape of his Zeitoun neighborhood on the southern edge of Gaza City. Recorded readings of the Quran drift out from a makeshift mourning tent. Almost all of the homes and greenhouses that belonged to this large farming family have been flattened.

The piles of rubble evoke an earthquake — except for the thick tracks and tread marks in the dirt from Israeli tanks and armored bulldozers. Gaping holes scar the few Samouni homes that are still standing.

Abdullah says he and some 20 of his relatives hid in one bedroom of their house when Israeli ground forces swarmed into Zeitoun around 6:30 a.m. on Sunday, Jan. 4. Abdullah says he remembers the red laser light from the soldiers' rifle sights darting around the dark room. One soldier, Abdullah says, asked his father to come forward.

"We were sitting in the bedroom, and the soldiers asked, 'Who is the owner of the house?' My dad went out with his hands up, and the Israeli soldier shot him immediately in the doorway," Abdullah recalls.

His father, 46-year-old Atiyeh, died instantly. One of Abdullah's brothers, 22-year-old Faraj Samouni, says he and others shouted "Children! Children!" in Hebrew as soldiers moved toward the bedroom, some firing their automatic rifles.

Witnesses say the survivors — some wounded — were eventually allowed to leave that house. Many fled to Wa'el al-Samouni's home nearby.

Hebrew graffiti cover the staircase in one of the Samouni family houses. The homes not destroyed by bombing later were defaced by Israeli soldiers who used them as temporary bases.

Short and frail, Ahmed Samouni looks younger than his 16 years. He says at dawn on Monday, Jan. 5, after about 90 Samounis had taken shelter in Wa'el's house, the shelling began again.

Ahmed's brown eyes look vacant as he describes the chaos as shells hit the house.

"They hit us with a bomb. Many in the house were killed; many were injured. My brother Izhaq was bleeding for two days. He was full of holes. I remember I gave him two tomatoes to eat. It was all he had before he died," Ahmed says.

Doctors and family members say the initial shelling killed 22 Samouni family members inside Wa'el's house. In the confusion and panic, roughly 50 others fled the partially collapsed house. Many of those, Ahmed says, were wounded. Nine people were left behind, including Ahmed; his mother, 42-year-old Laila; and at least three of his brothers.

Ahmed says he watched his 4-year-old brother, Nissar — then older brothers Ismael, 15, and Izhaq, 13 — bleed to death.

"My brother Nissar was in kindergarten. What's his fault? Why to get him shot? He's 4 years old. He was with my mother. She was hugging him when he died. My brother Ismael kept bleeding for two hours … and then he died. God grant us mercy," Ahmed says.

The Samounis' part of Zeitoun sits on slightly elevated farmland, key terrain for the Israeli army to control the southern approach to Gaza City. Witnesses say over the years militants have regularly launched rockets at Israel from the orange groves around the area.

But witnesses say there was little or no resistance here when the Israelis attacked. Evidence on the ground supports that: There are almost no casings from AK-47 rounds or remnants of rocket-propelled grenades — the main weapons of Hamas militants.

Witnesses in the area say Israeli soldiers knew there were wounded civilians in the Samouni houses but ignored pleas for help. Attempts to contact Palestinian emergency services proved fruitless.

Dr. Bashar Murad directs the emergency medical division at the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in Gaza.

"In the first two days of the ground offensive, we got 140 emergency calls for help from the Zeitoun area alone," he says.

Murad says in past attacks, the Israeli army had coordinated with the Red Cross and Red Crescent and had treated wounded civilians. So he was hopeful when he got the green light from the military on Jan. 4 to send an ambulance into Zeitoun.

But when Red Crescent driver Mohammed Shriteh drove his ambulance down Salahadin road into Zeitoun on Jan. 4 around 10:30 a.m., he says he was met by two Israeli tanks, an armored bulldozer and dismounted infantry. Shriteh says the soldiers then signaled him to stop and told him to get out of the car and strip off his shirt.

"They told me to lay down on the ground on my stomach. A soldier stood next to me and searched me. I told him that I'm from the Red Crescent. The soldiers just kept telling me, 'Shut up! Shut up!' They made some phone calls to I don't know who. Then they told me to just drive away and leave the area quickly," he says.

Shriteh drove off, frightened and worried. Murad says medics tried to give emergency medical advice to wounded Samouni family members over the phone. The Red Crescent and Red Cross were denied access to Zeitoun for three more days. The Red Cross finally reached the wounded and dead on the afternoon of Wednesday, Jan. 7.

Attorney Jonathan Drimmer is a war-crimes expert and former top prosecutor for special investigations and war crimes in the U.S. Justice Department.

"You must permit the treatment of civilians who are injured or even noncombatants who are injured. You must permit them medical care," he says.

Drimmer says the allegations against Israel — including charges the army used disproportionate force, failed to protect civilians and denied them medical care — all warrant further investigation.

"Anytime you have allegations of summary executions, of denial of medical care, of unnecessary deaths of civilians, it is greatly troubling; it is exactly what the laws of war are designed to prohibit," he says.

The U.N.'s top human rights official, Navi Pillav, has already said the events in Zeitoun warrant a full probe. Israel Defense Forces spokesman Capt. Benjamin Rutland says the military is taking the allegations seriously.

excerpts from NPR story Fate Of One Family Illustrates Gaza War's Ferocity. Story also speaks of possible attrocities commited by Hamas.