On Monday the Israeli government posted its latest word on the Gaza conflict of ’08-’09. It’s called the "second update" on its investigation of incidents during the conflict.
Below I have excerpted three accounts of one incident in the war (to which Norman Finkelstein directed my attention): the shootings of three sisters and their grandmother on January 7, 2009, in which two of the girls died. The accounts: 1, the Israeli government’s account, 2, a report on the incident in the Goldstone Fact-Finding Mission of the U.N., and 3, the account of the shootings from the girls’ father, as told to the Goldstone Mission.
Notice that the Israeli account, which absolves the Israeli unit engaged of any criminal responsibility, and describes the shootings as allegations purely, refers to the case as the shooting of 4 civilians, and while it gives their names, it does not say that the civilians were three sisters, aged 3, 5, and 9, and their 60-year-old grandmother.
1, The Israeli investigation:
(3) Amal, Souad, Samar, and Hajja Souad Abd Rabbo & Adham Kamiz Nasir
108. This incident involved the alleged shooting of four Palestinian civilians on 7 January 2009 in the neighborhood of Izbat Abd Rabbo, and was reported to Israeli authorities by several human rights organizations. The MAG referred the complaint to a direct criminal investigation which was recently concluded. In the course of this comprehensive investigation, the MPCID collected testimony from eleven Palestinians who witnessed the events. Some of them were unable or unwilling to testify before MPCID investigators, but provided detailed affidavits. In addition, the investigators reviewed medical reports and death certificates, as well as aerial photographs provided by an Israeli NGO, which helped identify the different units involved in the incident. More than fifty commanders and soldiers from these units were also questioned by the MPCID. Some were questioned multiple times in order to clarify the circumstances of the case.
109. The evidence collected in the course of the investigation could not confirm the description of the incident by the complainants, who claimed that a soldier standing on a tank had opened fire at a group of civilians. The substantial discrepancies between the complaint and the findings of the investigation—in particular, the identity of the force and the sequence of events—led the MAG to conclude that the evidence was insufficient to initiate criminal proceedings.
2, Now: The Goldstone Report,
:
770. The Mission visited the site of the shooting of Amal, Souad, Samar and Hajja Souad Abd Rabbo and interviewed an eyewitness, Mr. Khalid Abd Rabbo, on site. Khalid and Kawthar Abd Rabbo gave their testimony at the public hearing in Gaza on 28 June 2009. The Mission also reviewed sworn statements from two additional witnesses it was not able to interview in person.
771. The family of Khalid Abd Rabbo and his wife Kawthar lived on the ground floor of a four-storey building in the eastern part of Izbat Abd Rabbo, a neighbourhood east of Jabaliyah inhabited primarily by members of their extended family. Khalid Abd Rabbo’s parents and brothers with their families lived on the upper floors of the house. The residents of Izbat Abd Rabbo started hearing the sound of shooting and of the Israeli ground incursion in the evening of 3 January 2009. Khalid Abd Rabbo’s family decided to stay inside the house, all gathered on the ground floor, as they had done safely during previous Israeli incursions into the neighbourhood.
772. In the late morning of 7 January 2009, Israeli tanks moved onto the small piece of agricultural land in front of the house. Shortly after 12.30 p.m., the inhabitants of that part of Izbat Abd Rabbo heard megaphone messages telling all residents to leave. According to one witness’s recollection, there had also been a radio message broadcast by the Israeli armed forces around 12.30 announcing that there would be a temporary cessation of shooting between 1 and 4 p.m. that day, during which time residents of the area were asked to walk to central Jabaliyah.
773. At about 12.50 p.m., Khalid Abd Rabbo, his wife Kawthar, their three daughters, Souad (aged 9), Samar (aged 5) and Amal (aged 3), and his mother, Hajja Souad Abd Rabbo, stepped out of the house, all of them carrying white flags. Less than 10 metres from the door was a tank, turned towards their house. Two soldiers were sitting on top of it having a snack (one was eating chips, the other chocolate, according to one of the witnesses). The family stood still, waiting for orders from the soldiers as to what they should do, but none was given. Without warning, a third soldier emerged from inside the tank and started shooting at the three girls and then also at their grandmother. Several bullets hit Souad in the chest, Amal in the stomach and Samar in the back. Hajja Souad was hit in the lower back and in the left arm.
774. Khalid and Kawthar Abd Rabbo carried their three daughters and mother back inside the house. There, they and the family members who had stayed inside tried to call for help by mobile phone. They also shouted for help and a neighbour, Sameeh Atwa Rasheed al-Sheikh, who was an ambulance driver and had his ambulance parked next to his house, decided to come to their help. He put on his ambulance crew clothes and asked his son to put on a fluorescent jacket. They had driven a few metres from their house to the immediate vicinity of the Abd Rabbo house when Israeli soldiers near the Abed Rabbo house ordered them to halt and get out of the vehicle. Sameeh al-Sheikh protested that he had heard cries for help from the Abd Rabbo family and intended to bring the wounded to hospital. The soldiers ordered him and his son to undress and then re-dress. They then ordered them to abandon the ambulance and to walk towards Jabaliyah, which they complied with. When the families returned to Izbat Abd Rabbo on 18 January, they found the ambulance was in the same place but had been crushed, probably by a tank.
775. Inside the Abed Rabbo house, Amal and Souad died of their wounds. The family decided that they had to make an attempt to walk to Jabalya and take Samar, the dead bodies of Amal and Souad, and their grandmother to hospital. Khaled and Kawthar Abd Rabbo, and other family members and neighbours carried the girls on their shoulders. Hajja Souad was carried by family and neighbours on a bed. Samar was transferred to al-Shifa hospital and then, through Egypt, to Belgium, where she still is in hospital. According to her parents, Samar suffered a spinal injury and will remain paraplegic for the rest of her life.
776. When Khalid Abd Rabbo returned to his home on 18 January 2009, his house, as most houses in that part of Izbat Abd Rabbo, had been demolished. He drew the Mission’s attention to an anti-tank mine under the rubble of a neighbour’s house.
From the Goldstone Mission’s interview of Khaled Abed Rabbo, the father of the three girls:
Khaled Abed Rabbo
On January 7 at 12:50 p.m. the Israeli army bulldozed our garden and the Israeli tanks were positioned in front of our house. They started yelling at us through the speakers and asked us to leave the house. So I came out along with my wife and my three children: Suad, 8 years old, Samar, 4 years old, and Amal, 3 years old, and my mother, 60 years old. We were all holding white flags. The Israeli army was stationed right across from our house. So we stood by our entrance and holding… white flags. The tanks were seven meters away from our house…. They did not say anything to us. There were two soldiers sitting on top of the tank. One of them was eating chips. The other one was eating chocolate. We were looking at them like what are we supposed to do, where should we go… We were surprised because there was all of a sudden a third soldier coming out of the tank and they starting shooting at the children with no reason… with no explanation, no pretext. My daughter, 3 years old, her stomach was hit and her intestines were coming out. So really I was amazed at how could a soldier be firing at my daughter? So I carried my daughter, 3 years old. She could hardly breathe…. My other daughter was also wounded in her chest. So I took both of them, Samar and Amal, inside the house. My wife and my mother and my other daughter Suad were still outside. All of a sudden my wife joined me carrying Suad… Her chest was wounded by many bullets. My mother, 60 years old, she was carrying the white flag and she was wounded on her forearm and also in her stomach. So we were all inside the house and we started calling the ICRC, the ambulances, anybody to come and rescue us but nobody came and all of a sudden we heard an ambulance but all of a sudden nothing, silence. But later, we saw that the Israeli soldiers asked the ambulance drivers to come out of the car, to undress, and they bulldozed the ambulance with the tank… My daughter, Amal, 3 years old, she was dying and at the end of the day she did die. My other daughter, 8 years old, like I said, her chest was riddled with bullets. She passed away. My other daughter, Samar, her back was riddled with bullets. Her back was open. She was not breathing through her nose but through her lungs and she was telling me, “Dad, help, help,” and I couldn’t do anything. She was thirsty. I was afraid if I gave her any water something would happen. I didn’t know what to do. My mother, 60 years old, was also dying. I was helpless. I didn’t know what to do for my children. There was my daughter dying in front of me. So I carried her and left the house even if I had to die myself because I couldn’t take it anymore. So I carried my daughter and left the house again so that the soldier, he might as just well kill my daughter and kill myself because I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t let my children die in front of me.
