Gaza mourns the dozens dead in latest Israeli attack: ‘I lost everything in the blink of an eye’
The only reason
Mohamed, 26, was not dug out of the rubble of his home like the rest of his
family, was because he stopped for a quick chat. He remembers how his
father, a security guard at al-Awda hospital in north Gaza, was grumpy that his
oldest son was home late on Sunday evening. But a split-second
decision to say hello to a neighbour meant he was only at the gate of their
five-storey building when the Israeli airstrike hit, saving his life. His father, mother and
brother were killed.
“This fire ball just
consumed the top of the building and suddenly everything was dust,” Mohamed Abu
Al-Jidian told The Independent at the family funeral in Beit
Lahia, Gaza. With no home left to
gather in, the surviving relatives lined up plastic chairs in a nearby building
site. “I tried to go up to
save my father but the fire was too strong and the debris too much. I couldn’t
get to them,” he added.
The family were given
no warning by the Israeli forces or the “knock on the roof” preliminary
missile, as some buildings are.
Instead, there was a
deadening roar as the strike chewed off the entire top floor of the building,
leaving brick-toothed holes. “There was no reason
for our flat to be hit, so I thought at first the explosion must be behind the
building,” he said. The body of his
11-year-old brother Abdul-Rahman was the first to be found alongside their
neighbours the al-Ghazali family. Among the dead was a
four-month-old girl.
Mohamed’s mother
Raghda, and father Talal, 50, were not located until a day later: there was so
much debris it took rescue workers 24 hours to claw through concrete to find
them. “I don’t understand
it, my father was a hospital guard, he isn’t affiliated to any political [or
armed] group. There isn’t anything in this building but people’s homes,” he
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