[News] 'I pretended to be dead': Survivors recount harrowing Israeli field executions in Gaza

[Anti-Imperialist News]

middleeasteye.net
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/war-gaza-survivors-recount-harrowing-israeli-field-executions>
'I pretended to be dead': Survivors recount harrowing Israeli field
executions in Gaza
By Maha Hussaini in Gaza, occupied Palestine
January 4, 2024
------------------------------

For three days, Moemen Raed al-Khaldi lay wounded and motionless between
the corpses of his killed family members, pretending to be dead to protect
himself from being shot by Israeli soldiers.

On 21 December, Israeli <https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/israel>
soldiers broke into the house where the Khaldi family had taken refuge in
northern Gaza <https://www.middleeasteye.net/topics/israel-palestine-war>
and, in mere minutes, they shot everyone present.

The soldiers left the house thinking they had killed them all, only
Moemen remained alive, bleeding for days before the neighbours found him
and took him to hospital.

>From his hospital bed in al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City, he
recounted to Middle East Eye what happened on 21 December.

Khaldi and his family had gone to the home of their relatives in the Sheikh
Radwan neighbourhood in the north of Gaza City after being forced to
evacuate their own house.
'I pretended to be dead'

On that fateful day, after the sun had set, the family had finished prayers
and were lying together on the floor, covered in blankets, when Israeli
soldiers suddenly blew up the front door and stormed the house.

"Everyone in the vicinity was immediately wounded, including two women; my
grandmother and another pregnant woman," Khaldi said.

Addressing the family in Hebrew, the Israeli army instructed everyone to
evacuate the house. However, as no one spoke Hebrew, the family members
didn't understand the orders.

<https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/war-gaza-palestinian-child-curse-not-blessing>

War on Gaza: To be a Palestinian child is a curse, not a blessing

"The soldiers did not speak Arabic. No one spoke Hebrew and we did not
understand what they were saying. So, my grandfather tried to translate. He
only said a few words: 'Listen to what the soldiers are telling you and go
out'," Khaldi said.

"The soldiers turned around and thought that it was my father who had
spoken. They shot him with a bullet, and he was immediately killed."

The soldiers then shot everyone else in the room, including Khaldi.

"My grandfather was then martyred, followed by my uncle, then another two
men who had also taken refuge with us, then one of the owners of the house.
After that, my grandmother and the pregnant woman were martyred."

After he was shot, sustaining wounds to his legs, Khaldi lay motionless on
the floor, feigning death to prevent further gunfire from the soldiers.

"I was protecting myself by staying in a place between my uncle’s back and
the wall. I was protecting my head in this position. I stayed like this for
three days pretending not to be alive. During that time, the army came in
and out of the house, destroying the place, but I pretended to be [dead],"
he recalled.

"Three days later, people transferred me along with my martyred family
members to the hospital."
'They shot mum, then dad'

On 27 October, the Israeli army launched a ground invasion into the urban
areas, streets, and densely populated neighbourhoods of the Gaza Strip.

Days ahead of the invasion, the Israeli military started ordering the
residents of Gaza City and the rest of the northern Gaza Strip to evacuate
their homes and relocate to the areas in the southern Gaza Valley.

The military said it considers the Palestinians
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/palestine> who did not comply with
the evacuation orders as "terrorists", and its forces have since been using
deadly force against the people who have chosen to stay.

'No sooner had she said that, they shot her, then they shot dad'

*- Faisal al-Khaldi, six*

On 22 December, in the same neighbourhood where Khaldi’s family was
executed, his six-year-old relative, Faisal Ahmed al-Khaldi, survived a
similar incident after Israeli soldiers shot his parents dead in front of
him at his uncle's house.

"We were at home and the tank was [stationed] by the building's door. One
night, they broke down the gate and stormed in. The door to my uncle
Mohammed’s [apartment] was locked, they broke it and entered. They shot
everyone in the guest room," Faisal told MEE.

"We were sleeping, I heard their [noise], so I asked my mum: What is this
sound? She told me: These are Israelis. No sooner had she said that, they
shot her, then they shot dad."

Israeli soldiers then ordered the rest of Faisal's family members to gather
in one room, leaving the children to watch them from the corridor.

Faisal was hit by shrapnel from the bullets that killed his parents, but
shock kept him from feeling the wound at the time.

"We hid in the bedroom of my cousin Layan. We then headed to the door, I
could not walk, I kept on falling, so my uncle, Mohammed, carried me. When
he did, the soldiers ordered him and Layan's grandfather to take off their
clothes," he recounted.

"They ordered them to sit down, and we all went to sit in the corridor."

After the soldiers left the house, the family went to take refuge in a
school, and was only then that Faisal felt a pain in his abdomen.

"They took off my clothes and found out that I was wounded and took me to
the hospital," he said.
Executed before his disabled children

A week later, just a few kilometres away, Israeli soldiers executed
65-year-old Kamel Mohammed Nofal, a retired United Nations Relief and Works
Agency employee, in front of his wife and disabled adult children while "he
was trying to explain to them that his children could not understand the
instructions," his relative, Jamal Naim, told MEE.

<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/gaza-war-israel-palestine-forces-executed-family-home>

War on Gaza: The Palestinian family 'executed' in their home by Israeli
forces

"Israeli forces arrived at the building where Kamel and his family lived
and ordered everyone to evacuate the building. They all went down and
gathered on the street in front of the building" he said.

"There were 24 residents, including Kamel, his 63-year-old wife Fatima
Jamil Timraz, and their four children, their spouses and their children. At
least nine children were among them, the youngest was four months old."

According to Naim, three of Nofal’s children were deaf and mute, and the
fourth was visually impaired.

"Israeli soldiers were giving the group instructions about where to go and
what to do, but Kamel’s children could not understand as they were not able
to properly hear, see, or communicate with the forces, so the soldiers
proceeded to detain them," he said.

"Kamel spoke in Hebrew, telling the soldiers that his sons Hussam, 40,
Ahmed, 36, and Mahmoud, 32, and his daughter Wafaa, 31, were disabled. They
immediately shot him. He was killed in front of his children and everyone
else."

Naim reported that Israeli soldiers subsequently detained Nofal's children
and the rest of his family members. Their current whereabouts remain
unknown.
'They executed everyone'

When the Israeli military reached  al-Rimal neighbourhood in the centre of
Gaza City, it targeted several commercial and residential buildings. The
residents, however, were not allowed to evacuate.

Journalist Ahmed Dawoud, 38, was still in his home near the Palestine
crossroads when an Israeli tank targeted his neighbour’s apartment and he
was forced to flee.

"I left my home after the nearby apartment was burnt. We left the building
along with around 30 people, including the daughter of my journalist
friend. We were trying to flee, but upon arriving at the crossroads, two
girls were killed," he recounted.

'The body of my friend's daughter remained on the street for five days'

*- Ahmed Dawoud, 38*

"One of [the girls] was eight years old, she was my journalist friend’s
daughter, and the other was 15 years old. They executed them before our
eyes. If we did not take shelter, we would have also been among the
martyrs."

When the soldiers opened fire on the residents, some retreated to the
building, and others decided to walk on to a safer place.

"The body of my friend’s daughter remained on the street. We entered a
random house, and for four or five days, we were just watching [out the
window], trying to retrieve the body. We were encircled by Israeli soldiers
who were executing everyone in the area," he said.

"Five days later, we went down and retrieved the body under the [Israeli]
quadcopters"

When he fled the building, some of his neighbours remained in their
apartment. When Israeli soldiers entered the building and found them, he
said, they executed the entire family, before setting the house on fire.

"They executed them all, the entire group... They executed everyone in the
area, they did not leave anyone."

*- Mohammed Qreiqe in Gaza contributed to this report*
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