Sunday July the 20th was another Ramadan day, now a few weeks into the month. I was sitting in the ground floor of the four-story building where I live, with cousins and uncles. They had had to leave their houses the day before due to the heavy shelling and artillery bombardment of their neighborhood further to the east. Women and girls were sitting together waiting for sundown pray and the meal as well, above on the first floor. Altogether, we were about 50 people just waiting to begin the iftar meal. The call for prayer started, signaling sundown, and with that, naturally we started to eat. A few seconds passed when we heard two loud explosions, and the roaring sound of an F16. Some of us rushed immediately to the street and others turned on the radio. A building of our Abu Jamei family was hit, it said. We started to wonder which specific house and which part of our family. The news came from the street that it was Tawfik's house! A few seconds later, the radio gave the news of Tawfik’s mother’s death (Fatma), and a child. By then, the worst scenario racing through our minds was that the building was hit with a warning rocket and that Fatma and her grandchild had no time to escape. Unfortunately we were wrong, things were actually much worse! The 3 story house was hit by the F16 without any prior warning while four families were sitting around their table just beginning to break the day’s fast.

All this happened just after sunset; the civil defense team could not continue their rescue work due to the heavy artillery shelling continuing in the immediate area. Twenty-eight of my relatives including 19 children and 3 pregnant women were killed. The only ones to survive were Tawfik himself and his four year old child.

Bodies of the dead were sent to the two hospitals in Khan Younis. It was extremely difficult to identify children, bodies all burned, and heads of children were all either cut or exploded. There was little space in the hospitals; the morgues had no space either. It was a bloody day for Khan Younis. Israel claimed that a wanted man was a guest of one of the families and that's why they did it.

Monday was spent between the hospital, the mosque (for funeral prayer) and the cemetery. It was another Ramadan day and another gathering for breakfast after a long, terrible, and exhausting day. Again while sitting at sundown, immediately after the call of prayer another explosion was heard. It was extremely close; all children and women were screaming. The whole neighborhood this time was screaming as the dome of the mosque was hit with what seemed to be a drone missile. Dozens of people were inside the mosque—but luckily no one was severely hit, though some were wounded by window glass shrapnel. A few minutes later we returned to our meal, to have our food after 16 hours of fasting.

I wonder what memories Israel is trying to seed in our minds, and if it succeeded in some in replacing happiness and joy with sadness and fear.

Yasser Abu Jamei

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