IDF kill woman in her Rafah home, May 2002

Imtithal Ghanem, son, aged 17

On Thursday, May 5, 2002, I was in my house in the a-Salam neighborhood in Rafah. My house is located approximately 200 meters from the Egyptian border. At around 4:00 PM, tanks were heard approaching the area. Our neighbor, Fathia al-Kassir, aged 40, arrived at our house when she heard the tanks. She lives alone, and usually comes to our house when she fears danger. Fathia, my mother and I were in the living room, which has windows facing west. I went to the window to see in which direction the tanks were moving. I kept going to the window to check from time to time. At around 5:00 PM, I was standing at the window. I saw four Israeli tanks firing toward the north. I heard a series of explosions and saw dust and smoke rising from one of the tanks. At that moment, my mother, Sabha, aged 48 and our neighbor Fathia joined me at the window. We kept standing and looking outside. At around 5:30 PM, a bullet hit the window. I felt a sharp pain and a sensation of heat in my right arm. I also felt some pain in my chest, but disregarded it as I saw our neighbor put her hand on her shoulder and shout: ?I'm hurt.? At that moment, my mother fell to the ground, approximately two meters away from the window.

I called out to my father Yunis, aged 50 and my brother Islam, aged 27. They immediately came inside and went to our neighbor, thinking she was the only one hurt. Islam's wife, Ahlas, aged 23 went to my mother. We all thought that she had fainted from the shock, but when Ahlas tried to help her she saw that her clothes were stained with blood. She screamed out to her husband and my father that my mother had been hurt in the chest. My father went to my mother, while my brother and uncle called for an ambulance. My father tried to stop the bleeding. When we saw that the ambulance was not arriving, my brother Islam went outside to look for a car in order to take my mother to the hospital.

Islam came back around ten minutes later with a car that belonged to one of the neighbors. He and my father carried my mother to the car and took her to the hospital. They took dirt roads and side paths, as Israeli tanks were driving along the main road. They also took our neighbor Fathia to the hospital. I stayed home with my sister-in-law, as my injury was not severe. My brother Hamed, returned 45 minutes later and took me to the hospital in a taxi. When I got to Yussef a-Najar Hospital, my mother was in surgery. After receiving treatment, I returned home. At around 7:00 PM, my brother Islam called and told us our mother had died.

Testimony of Imtithal Yunis Hussein Ghanem, born in 1985, single, a student, and a resident of a-Salam neighborhood in Rafah. The testimony was given to Haidar Ghanem in Rafah, May 6, 2002.