Man from Gaza witnesses soldiers executing his father

"They fired at him… then a number of soldiers approached his wounded body and fired again to make sure he was dead".

This was not a fighter, not an armed man that the soldiers wanted to neutralize; this is a story of an aged man who was executed by Israeli soldiers east of Khan Younis, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.Resident Mubarak Ahmad Al Shareehy, 34, tells the story of how he witnessed the soldiers executing his father during the war on Gaza.

The son remembers the details of that horrific day and tells the story to the Palestine Information Center.

He woke up on Thursday morning, January 8, and looked through his window at his father's house.

"I could hear gunfire but I did not see soldiers advancing. I saw my 72-year old father using his crutch and walking towards my home, he called my name and said he is coming over", the son said. "I said, welcome, come over, but then I heard gunfire, I saw bullets hitting a wall and then my father".

As he fell, his daughter-in-law and grandchildren started screaming and crying while his son phoned the medics and rushed towards his father.

"But as soon as we left our home, Israeli soldiers surrounded us, ordering us to freeze. Then two soldiers approached me and my kids" the son added, "two other soldiers approached my wounded father and stood by his head; he was on his abdomen and still moving his legs".

Mubarak tried to talk to the soldiers, asking them to let him rescue his father, but they ordered him to remain silent and said that they would shoot him if he spoke again.

"I then witnessed the most horrific act: I saw one soldier approach my father, point his gun and shoot him", said Mubarak.

"I heard my wife and children screaming after witnessing this crime. I tried to get to my father but one of the soldiers hit me with his rifle and pushed me back before cuffing me and leading me, my wife and kids to the house of my neighbor, some 50 meters away", he added.

The family remained held hostage in the bathroom of a neighboring home that was evacuated by the family due to the Israeli shelling.

"We stayed imprisoned from 7 in the morning until midnight; my children were hungry and terrified", Mubarak stated, "they thought the soldiers would execute them as they had executed their grandfather".

The son speaks Hebrew as he has previously worked in Israel, and could hear the soldiers discussing amongst themselves whether they should kill him. But then a commander arrived and they all left the house.

"When they left it was after midnight; I rushed outside towards my father and found his body still on the ground, covered with blood", the son added, "He was not moving, not breathing, I knew he was dead though I was hoping otherwise".

The son then carried his father’s body to the house and placed him on his bed.

"I called the Red Crescent Ambulance but they said they could come now as the army is restricting their movement" Mubarak stated, "They said the army was invading the area and they are not allowed to move without permission from the Israeli military command".

Mubarak remained with his father’s body while his wife and children stayed at the neighbors’ home. In the morning, the army retreated from the area and the medics managed to enter it and took the aged man's body to the morgue.

The rest of the family is alive but with a wound that will never heal after witnessing the execution, being imprisoned and unable to move without risking also being killed.This is an incident that will forever remain imprinted in their memory, in their dreams and in their lives.

Though a real life story, it is like thousands of others that never make it to the mainstream corporate media that condones oppression in order to remain the "leading news source".

This is just one incident in what Israel and its allies choose to call "war on terror". If innocent children, women and elderly civilians are terrorists, then I am a terrorist too.