A view of the street where the attack on a group of fleeing people took place. 16 persons were killed mostly from the Al Mahmoum and Hammad families, including eight children and six women
05-08-2015 06:39
A view of the street where the attack on a group of fleeing people took place. 16 persons were killed mostly from the Al Mahmoum and Hammad families, including eight children and six women
Old Photos of Asma (16 at the time she was killed) and her brother Yahia (13 at the time he was killed). They were killed on the street while trying to flee the bombings
A photo of Hani Salem Suleiman Al Mahmoum (23). His brother Sami (20) saw him being killed, just a few meters away from him. Sami entered a building and survived. “We did not know who was alive and dead until the next day. We could not recognize the bodies. They were scattered and we could recognize some of them only by their clothes,” explains Sami Al Mahmoum
A photo Yahia Salem Suleiman Al Mahmoum (23). An ambulance tried to reach the location of the attack, but according to Fathi Hammad, a drone missile was fired in front of it. The bodies and injured were taken to the hospital by civilians
Mohammed (11) and his sister Islam (7) Salem Suleiman Al Mahmoum, in the location where they were standing when the attack occurred. According to his brother, Sami, Mohammed forgets a lot of things and becomes easily nervous. They lost their mother and four siblings in the attack
Fathi Hamad with his two daughters, Hiba (6) and Jana (3), who were both injured. “After the attack, there was a lot of smoke, but after 5 minutes we saw many people around, dead and injured. Ten minutes later, an ambulance came but had to go back after a missile was fired in front of it. Civilians carried the people,” explains Fathi
Hiba (6) was injured and treated in Turkey. She still has problems walking. “When I take her to school, she remembers what happened, and says 'my skin was stuck to the pipe',” explains her father Fathi
Al Mahmoum family, Rafah (also with victims of Hamad family)
The Al Mahmoum family was attacked while they ran down the street as a family, in Rafah. The attack took place at 10:53am on 1 August 2014; the first day of the launch of the so-called 'Hannibal Directive' by the Israeli army, now described as “Black Friday”. Massive airstrikes and indiscriminate shelling by tanks and artillery took place in the Rafah area over the weekend. On the days 1 – 4 August, during which the Hannibal Directive was still in place, at least 255 people were killed, mostly in their houses and while fleeing eastern Rafah. The 16 people were killed when the Abu Shawareb building in Al Tannour was attacked with a large bomb dropped by an Israeli warplane.
The Al Mahmoum family and their neighbours decided to flee when the shelling and bombing intensified near their houses. The Al Mahmoum family first moved to the house of Nazmi Hammad where they stayed for a short while. But the shelling resumed, injuring some of the men of the family. The women and children were in a room at the back of the house, and they tried to escape quickly. A large group, with many women and children, then moved and walked in the street. They intended to run to another relative,s house; the home of Fathi Al Mahmoum, but they were attacked on the way.
The 16 extended family members who were killed in that attack :