No Place Like Home - Amira Hass

Stories of the horrors that befell entire Palestinian families during the war

Haaretz, February 7, 2009 - Within seconds A'amer al-Dayeh lost his parents, two sisters, three sisters-in-law, three brothers and 12 of their children. The youngest, Sansabeel, was 3 months old. The oldest, Ali, was 11. It happened on January 6, when an Israeli plane bombed Dayeh's house between 5:30 and 6 A.M. He is now living with relatives, his home destroyed. For four years he lived in the West Bank, where he studied education at An-Najah National University in Nablus, and worked in a Palestinian Authority security agency under Yasser Arafat. For a month in 2002 he was trapped with the Palestinian leader in the Muqata in Ramallah during the Israeli siege on the PA headquarters.

On the morning of Tuesday, January 6, during the 60th hour of the Israel Defense Forces' ground offensive, soldiers had already deployed among the houses in the southernmost section of the Zeitoun neighborhood, a few kilometers from where Dayeh lived, and from which the frightening noises of explosions and gunfire emanated for two days. Many people started to flee.

On the narrow, densely built-up street, a rumor spread that the IDF was going to bombard the house of the Dayehs' neighbors and that the Red Cross had informed the family. Local residents, including the Dayehs, left their homes in a panic and started heading west. But then someone called the Red Cross, which said there was no talk of any such action, "and everyone went back, including our family." ....