{mosimage}She was running over a small sand hill, screaming and crying… “Father, Father” but her father did not reply as his blood and the water of the sea were mixed, and all that Hadeel could see was blackness and sadness that covered the eye of the sun on such a bright warm day.
This was not a scene enacted from a drama series, or a movie, this was the real, the bitter and harsh reality of a massacre, conducted by the Israeli occupation army against a family on vacation at the beach in Gaza,.
A massacre that claimed the lives of seven family members, and three other residents with at least thirty injured.
Blood stained prams, tables, ripped umbrellas , were evidence of the horror that took place on the beach.
"I saw my father dying in my arms and the bodies of my brother and sisters dispersed everywhere. They took me to hospital. Thank God, I am lightly injured, but I’ve lost everything. My family was around me but no one was alive”, Hadeel said.
“Everybody was running away, everybody looking in all directions searching for family members,
screams and bodies were everywhere”, She added, “I tried to talk to him, and say what Muslims say in moments of death (No God but Allah, Mohammad is his prophet…but he was dead”.
A whole family was gone, killed and massacred while on vacation at the beach, in the Al Soudaniyya , in the northwestern area of the Gaza Strip after the Israeli Naval forces fired shells at hundreds of residents on the beach.
The family members killed were, the father Mohammad Ali Fad’os, his wife Ghalia, his three daughters and son. The family comes from Al Atatra area, near Beit Lahia in the northern part of the Gaza Strip.
Wiham, 20, and his two sisters, Latifa, 11, and Hadeel, 8, survived after the rest of their family vanished on the terribel Friday when the Israeli navy shelled a Gaza beach.
This scene could break the heart of toughest stone… children crying over the bodies of their parents, others lying bleeding on the sands of the beach after Israeli shells of hatred and the automatic fire rained down on the residents holidaying at the beach.
Paramedics collected the remains of the family’s bodies, and carried the upper torso of the mother before searching for the remainder of her body buried, in pieces, under the sand… then they searched for the bodies of the infants.
It was supposed to be a holiday , a good time amidst the continuous Israeli attacks and strikes on Gaza. The children, Haitham, Sabreen, Elham and Ra’esa were playing on the sands and hugging the soft waves of the tides before Israel’s shells of hatred destroyed their happiness and their lives.
Among the killed members of the family were infant twins not even one year old , one of them was sleeping, while the other was swinging on a baby swing.
Their laughs that had filled the beach were silenced by the sounds of the shells and explosions that ripped their small bodies to pieces.
The only sounds that remained there were cries of pain, the wail ambulance sirens… Where are the children? Where is the father, the mother?… where is everybody?!!
Nothing remained, everything ended by the shells of hatred…the remaining sound was the voice fromone child, keening over the body of her father screaming “Daddy, daddy… what did they do”, and she threw herself on the sand beside her fathers’ body after finding no space on his ripped apart lap.
Gaza cried, Palestine cried and the waves of the sea cried for the people who came to vacation on the beach , before the army transformed their happiness into sadness and grief .
Will the world cry, or move or even raise a voice against these continuous crimes against innocent civilians??
How many innocent lives will be wasted, ripped and torn apart before the world is able to see clearly… ubefore the world start s to realize the nature of the occupation, the nature of a powerful army that uses Palestinian land, and Palestinian bodies as it’s training zone, and battle field.
The battle field this time was a beach… a beach filled with families trying to enjoy the good weather and sunshine.
Innocent civilians trying to escape the daily Israeli attacks on Gazan cities, they came to the seaside in search a good time, but the shells and military aggression pursued them there and stole their happiness, their lives and families away.
Israeli senior military officials explain their crime with an “apology” and an empty statement that the “incident” will be investigated. Will that be enough for the families, the children, the innocent lives that were oblterated by these Israels powerful shells!!
