Israel may face war-crimes case for alleged atrocities
Sydney Morning Herald Date: January 21 2009
Tim Butcher in Zeitoun, Gaza
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 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 January 4 and 5.
So far dozens of bodies, mostly women, children and elderly, have been recovered, almost all from the same extended family.
The 48th corpse was found on Monday but there are fears others lie under the rubble.
"We had been in our houses for days worried about the air strikes when the soldiers came early on the morning of Sunday, January 4," Zinad Samouni said.
"There was shooting outside and we were all afraid so we all hid in this one room."
There were her husband, his first wife, Zahwe, 42, with her seven sons, a cousin, Hamdi, and herself, with her eight children.
"We were terrified as shells hit the roof in other parts of the house but we thought we were lucky because they did not hit our room.
"Eventually we heard soldiers banging on the door at around 6.30am. Atiyeh went to the door with his hands raised holding his ID but they shot him in the doorway and he fell forward."
Faraj Samouni, 22, Zahwe's son, said the children started to scream as Israeli soldiers entered.
"I shouted 'children, children' in Hebrew but they started shooting," he said. "Ahmed was hit two times. His sister Amal was hit in the head and is still in hospital."
Zinad Samouni pointed at a lick of blood on the wall and then turned over the mattress the children had been sitting on to show more. "I carried him [Ahmed] in my arms, still bleeding, and we had to step over the body of his father," she said.
"We had to leave Atiyeh but I hoped to save Ahmed. He died as I carried him."
Atiyeh's body lay where he had been shot for almost two weeks while Israeli soldiers occupied a four-storey house next door, leaving a collection of racist graffiti. Most was written in Hebrew but Israeli soldiers had also marked the walls in English, with messages such as "ARabs need 2 die", "Arabs are pieces of shit" and "1 is DOWN 999,999 TO GO".
The house was the only large property that the Israeli army allowed to stand. All the other buildings in Zeitoun, including dwellings, the mosque and a chicken farm, were flattened. They used the house as an observation post from which to watch the open ground around Zeitoun, which guards the southern approach to Gaza City.
What happened in the house of Wael Samouni, 39, almost opposite the four-storey structure, is also likely to figure in any war crimes investigation. Survivors allege that Israeli forces shepherded about 110 members of the Samouni family inside and then shelled it. At least 30 bodies were recovered. Flattened by the Israelis, the wreckage is barely recognisable as a building.
Ambulance drivers, when they first tried to reach the dead and wounded in the village, were shot at by Israeli forces. In the end the ambulance crews made four visits, collecting 48 bodies as of Monday night.
When the crews found children clinging to their mothers' corpses, the International Committee of the Red Cross reminded Israel of its obligations to civilians under the rules of war.
The children had been out in the open for two days and nights but Israeli forces, less than 90 metres away, allegedly did nothing.
The Israeli army has denied acting improperly in Zeitoun.
Telegraph, London