Gaza: Israeli forces open fire during storming of a house

(Jerusalem, August 8, 2024) – Israeli forces stormed a house in Gaza City on December 21, 2023, throwing grenades inside and opening fire on a room where a civilian family had sought shelter, Human Rights Watch said today.

The attack left seven people dead, including a pregnant woman, and two seriously injured, including a five-year-old. Witnesses also claim that Israeli forces shot dead a blind 73-year-old man after securing the building and expelling all other family members from the building. The incident should be investigated as a possible war crime and the forces involved should be held accountable.

“There is no excuse for soldiers to storm into a house full of civilians and fire without caution,” said Belkis Wille, deputy director for crises, conflict, and weapons at Human Rights Watch. “They have destroyed a Palestinian family and orphaned a young child who may never walk again.”

Human Rights Watch interviewed three members of the al-Khalidi family, two of whom witnessed the attack and were interviewed by telephone. In June 2024, they met with Faisal, the injured 5-year-old, in Qatar, where he received medical care. The researchers also analyzed a video uploaded to the Israel Defense Forces’ X-account (formerly known as Twitter), IDFonline, parts of which were verified to have been filmed between December 20 and 21. It shows Israeli soldiers and armored vehicles nearby, but no ongoing fighting or soldiers coming under fire.

Mohammed al-Khalidi, 40, and Mu’min al-Khalidi, 21, cousins, said that on the night of December 20-21, a house in Sheikh Radwan, north of Gaza City, near five schools that house displaced people, was hit by a grenade. Mohammed, Mu’min and 29 other family members were in the house next door. They had fled their homes following an evacuation call by the Israeli military. They said Mohammed’s sister-in-law Fatma al-Khalidi, 32, who was seven months pregnant, suffered a broken leg in the grenade attack.

About 30 minutes after the attack, Mohammed said, Israeli forces arrived with armored vehicles and bulldozers. “We looked out and saw them smashing windows, running over cars with their tanks, destroying power lines and destroying anything else they could,” Mohammed said. Many residents of the area fled south, but the al-Khalidis did not because older family members could not flee quickly. Both said no one in the house was armed or had ties to an armed group, nor were they aware of any fighters nearby at the time.

The next day, Mu’min and Mohammed reported, Israeli forces fired on the ground floor of their building around noon. Then, around 5 p.m., more than a dozen Israeli soldiers stormed the gate into the courtyard and, without warning or provocation, threw a grenade through a window of the house’s empty living room. After that, Mohammed said, soldiers threw another grenade into the house’s main corridor, moved on, kicked down a door and threw at least two more grenades into a room where 12 people were sheltering, including Mu’min and Mohammed.

Both said that when they heard soldiers approaching, they grabbed their identification papers and held them in their hands. Mu’min said he was injured and fell against the wall. His uncle Amjad al-Khalidi, 42, landed on top of him.

The women screamed, and a soldier came in and opened fire on everyone with an automatic rifle, both men said. Fatma, who was killed, was holding the badly injured Faisal with her husband Ahmed. When the shooting stopped, Fatma’s six-year-old son Adam ran from the room when he saw his father, Mohammed’s brother Ahmed al-Khalidi, 34, “lying on the floor in a pool of blood, like a slaughtered sheep,” Mohammed said. Adam was unharmed.

The cousins ​​​​said seven family members were killed in the attack: Fatma, Ahmed, Mohammed’s brothers-in-law Shaaban Abu Jabal, 33, and Adham Abu Jabal, 20, as well as Nawal al-Khalidi, 70, and their children Raed al-Khalidi, 49, and Amjad al-Khalidi.

“A soldier said in Arabic, ‘Whoever is alive, stand up,'” Mohammed said. “I stood there and he looked at me and said, ‘You survived, you wanker, right?’ They took me outside and examined my face with a machine.”

Abd Rabu al-Khalidi, Nawal’s 73-year-old husband, who was blind and unharmed, did not leave the room. Other family members – all children and women – who had sought shelter in another room were also ordered outside by the soldiers. Mohammed said the soldiers strip-searched the surviving men and searched the women and children. They asked where the original residents of the house were, and Mohammed said they did not know.

Then, Mohammed said, “we heard gunshots inside. I think that’s when they killed everyone who survived inside. They told us, ‘Your last chance of survival is to run in a line behind this soldier.’ We asked, ‘Where are you taking us?’ He said, ‘Shut up and just run after him.'”

Mu’min was also unable to leave the room. “I couldn’t move or hear anything because I had temporarily lost my hearing due to the explosions,” he said. “I quickly lost consciousness.” When he came to the next day, he realized that he was lying under a pile of corpses.

“There are no words to describe what I felt,” he said. “I just want to know why. Why did I have to witness such a massacre? Why did I lose all those people? What did we do to deserve all this? There were no resistance fighters in the house, no weapons of any kind, just civilians.”

Metal fragments from the explosion had injured Mu’min’s knee, calf and foot, and a bullet struck his thigh. He said that when he regained consciousness he was able to reach for a bottle of water, but soon lost consciousness again and was only able to come to the next day and pull himself out from under the bodies, able to move only his hands. By that time, Abd Rabu had already been killed, apparently when soldiers re-entered the house after evacuating Mohammed and others.

Mohammed found Mu’min when he returned with a doctor four days later to recover the bodies. “The legs of Amjad, Raed and Shaaban were shattered by the grenade explosion,” Mohammed said. “They looked like minced meat, and Ahmed was pierced by metal fragments in his stomach and neck. Fatma’s stomach and face were full of metal fragments. The whole wall was splattered with blood. Adham had a gunshot wound that went through his jaw and came out the back of his head… Abd Rabu was also dead and had gunshot wounds.”

Mohammed said he found over 60 bullet casings in the house.

Faisal underwent four operations in Gaza for a ruptured intestine, a ruptured bladder and several hip fractures, and suffered three more in Qatar. Six months after the attack, he was in a cast from his hips to his thighs. Doctors say he may never walk again. Abdulhafith al-Khalidi, Faisal’s uncle and now his guardian, who accompanied him to Doha, said the attack had dramatically changed the child: “Faisal used to be so social and outgoing. He was always independent, running around and talking to new people. He was never afraid. Now when I go into the other room, he calls for me. You can never leave him alone.”

Mu’min said he has not been granted permission to leave Gaza and is still in the north without medication. His injuries, including several torn tendons, are largely untreated.

Surviving family members of the al-Khalidis identified the house where the attack took place on a map. Human Rights Watch analyzed a video consisting of seven clips posted online by the Israeli military on December 24. One of them shows Israeli forces operating less than 160 meters from the house the al-Khalidis had identified.

The Israeli military report accompanying the video states that the units shown in the video are the 13th Shayetet and the 401st Brigade. Human Rights Watch found that at least one clip of the video was filmed between the morning of December 20 and the late afternoon of December 21. It shows at least 17 Israeli military personnel outside the Al-Taqwa Mosque, 170 meters southwest of the house.

In the same X-post, the Israeli military posted a photo and said it had raided a school that Human Rights Watch had located across the street and found a cache of weapons and explosives. Israeli authorities have not released any further information about the attack, nor did they respond to a July 15 letter from Human Rights Watch summarizing the findings and requesting specific information about the incident.

“This incident underscores the deadly consequences of the failure of Israeli forces to protect and, in some cases, apparently deliberately target civilians in Gaza, including children,” Wille said. “Other governments should urge the Israeli government to stop the unlawful attacks and to deny complicity in any possible War crimes by stopping the supply of weapons to Israel.”