Killed by Israeli forces for the crime of being Palestinian and being at home
At approximately 7:50 pm on Sunday, 20 July 2014, Israeli warplanes bombarded the house of Tawfiq Ahmad Abu Jame’. The three-story-house is inhabited by five families and is located in the Bani Suhaila town, east of Khan Younis district in the south of the Gaza Strip.
The house, which was attacked without prior warning, was completely destroyed in the attack. Civil defense and ambulances crews rushed to the destroyed house to uncover the bodies buried under the rubble. It took them until the next day, Monday 21 July 2014, to uncover the victims.
Medics found 26 bodies, 18 children and five women. Only three residents survived, and they sustained varying injuries.
24 members of the Abu Jame’ family were killed in the attack which also killed four others. Fifteen of those killed were children. An
Associated Press report quoted a surviving family member:
“Doesn’t this indicate that Israel is ruthless?” said family member Sabri Abu Jame’. “Are we the liars? The evidence is here in the morgue refrigerators. The evidence is in the refrigerators.”
Sorry, Sabri. The apologists will be along in a minute to explain that
you're to blame because...well, they'll spout all the usual talking-points because they're without shame and frighteningly callous.
Meanwhile, Israeli politicians will accuse you of 'self-genocide' and Bibi Netanyahu will accuse the corpses of your family of being intentionally 'telegenic while dead' (a serious crime in Likud circles, apparently).
They'll call you an 'anti-semite' ( a term they abuse so often that it has ceased to have much meaning; what they mean by it is 'anyone we disagree with' or 'anyone who speaks an inconvenient truth'). They'll say that Hamas was hiding in your children's bedroom..or were planning to.
But it doesn't really matter what they say; what matters is what they won't say.
They won't tell you the real reason 24 members of your family, including 15 children were slaughtered.
The real reason, Sabri, is because you're Palestinian, because you're poor, because you don't have the ear of US politicians or the money to buy yourself a few of them and because Sheldon Adelson, Charles Krauthammer, John McCain and Lindsay Graham just don't like you.
Sorry. Better luck in the next life.
Update: It might be worse than first reported; according to The Guardian:
Further south, in Khan Younis, an extended family was wiped out in an air strike on a house. The number of dead was put at between 24 and 28.