Why does reading through this sound so familiar?

A pillar in the family

The horrors that the al-Samouni clan experienced are the latest in a series of traumas that began during the 2008-2009 Israeli offensive when soldiers killed 48 of their family members in Operation Cast Lead.

The army had corralled several families under one roof and fired missiles at the house, killing dozens. Some people managed to get out, waving white flags, but when the Red Cross was granted permission to enter the building three days later, they were met with the harrowing sight of 13 injured people, including eight children, who spent days without food or water, surrounded by the bodies of their parents and relatives.

One of those killed was Zahwa’s husband, Attiya. Their daughter Amal, who is Abdullah’s twin sister, was only eight at the time but remembers everything in vivid detail.

“That cold January day, 100 Israeli soldiers raided our home and killed my dad in front of us,” the 24-year-old said. “They first threw a grenade at the entrance of the house, engulfing us in smoke.”

The soldiers shouted in Hebrew for the homeowner to step forward. Attiya, who had worked previously in Israel, raised his arms and identified himself.

“They shot him between the eyes, then in the chest,” Amal said. “Then they kept shooting, riddling his body with bullets.”

Earlier, as the tanks surrounded their home, Attiya had taught his children to say in Hebrew “We are children”, but it made no difference.

“After they shot my dad they began firing at us,” Amal said. “Abdullah and I were both wounded. They set a fire in one of the bedrooms, and we were suffocating from the smoke.”

Hamam was barely a year old at the time. Their brother Ahmad, four years old at the time, was shot twice in the head and in the chest and was left to bleed to death until dawn the next day, as the Israeli army prevented any ambulances from reaching the area.

Ahmad died in his mother Zahwa’s arms. She had lost her husband, her son, and her home and in the 15 years since that fateful day, the family had to work twice as hard to rebuild their lives.