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They also fired at anyone who moved. They willfully targeted civilians. Wounded victims bled to death. Commanders kept ambulances away from target sites. Even unarmed civilians trying to walk away were shot. Bombing and shelling killed others.
On January 5, Salah thought family members still remained in another house. He wanted them safer with him. IDF shells and rockets struck the building. He said:
"My daughter Azza, my only daughter, two and a half years old, was injured in the first hit on the house. She managed to say, 'Daddy, it hurts.' And then, in the second hit, she died.""And I'm praying. Everything is dust and I can't see anything. I thought I was dead. I found myself getting up, all bloody, and I found my mother sitting by the hall with her head tilted downward."
"I moved her face a little, and I found that the right half of her face was gone. I looked at my father, whose eye was gone. He was still breathing a little, and then he stopped."
Under dust and rubble in one large room, nine family members remained alive. They included the elderly matriarch, five grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. The youngest was three.
The previous day, nine-year old Amal saw soldiers burst into her home. They killed her father, Atiyeh. She took shelter in Uncle Tallal's home. Together with other family members, they moved to Wael's house. She didn't know her brother Ahmad was bleeding to death in his mother's arms in another neighborhood home.
Surviving children found food scraps to eat. They went from corpse to corpse shaking them, hitting them, telling them to get up. Amal regained consciousness. Her head was bloody. Her eyes rolled in their sockets. She cried out for water. She wanted her mother and father. She beat her head on the floor.
Doctors called removing shrapnel from her head too dangerous. No one's sure how events unfolded after Wael's house was struck. Survivors were dazed and injured.
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