Te gast:
\nA hospital full of tragic stories – all from a single family
\nBy Avi Issacharoff
\nHaaretz<\/p>\n
The horror simply cannot be put into words – 17 members of a single family killed. And all were sleeping on their mattresses (because not everyone has a bed) when the shelling began.
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\nOne can only imagine the horror of those seconds: the panic, the hysteria, the rush to get out of the family home, and then another shell and another one, some falling in the alley near the entrance to the house and hitting the few who survived the initial hell. And then, a few moments of silence before the ambulance sirens filled the air. <\/p>\n
It is difficult to say who in the family suffered the more tragic fate – the dead or the wounded. In this macabre and accursed competition, the dead can be represented by Massoud Abdallah al-Otamana, 55, who was killed in all likelihood by the first shell, along with his mother, his wife, his 14-year-old daughter, two of his daughters-in-law and two nephews. The wounded can be represented by Abdallah, Massoud’s 9-year-old son, who lost a leg and has been left an orphan, or perhaps by Massoud’s brother, Saad, 50, who said yesterday from his hospital bed in Beit Hanun that he would never return to his home again. <\/p>\n
Saad’s wife, who was pregnant, was killed in the shelling along with three of their sons, two grandsons, two daughters-in-law and his brother, Massoud. “I have nothing to back to Beit Hanun for,” he said. “If I go back, I will lose my mind and kill myself. I have another seven small children who are still alive; one of them is in very serious condition and I don’t know if he will live or die. I call on the entire world to help me and adopt my children.” <\/p>\n
The hospital in Beit Hanun is full of tragic stories, and it is hard to believe that they all stem from a single extended family. The children lie in their hospital beds, some with light wounds, and others with missing limbs. Iman, 9, lost her mother and one of her legs; she says that when the shells fell, she was in the family room with her mother, her three sisters and her grandmother. She knows that her mother was killed and that her grandmother is in serious condition a few rooms away from her. <\/p>\n
The family members who emerged from the shelling unscathed mill around the beds of the wounded, confused and uneasy, and with no idea what will become of the family, which remains without a home. They do not even know when they will be able to bury the dead: The Israel Defense Forces’ previous operation in the village led to a shortage of burial plots in the local cemetery. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Te gast: A hospital full of tragic stories – all from a single family By Avi Issacharoff Haaretz The horror simply cannot be put into words – 17 members of a single family killed. And all were sleeping on their … Lees verder