That night was a friendly one for the Jamal family, who live in the Shuja'iyya neighborhood east of Gaza City. Its hours passed quietly and monotonously, while the morning light seemed like a "harbinger" that tried to draw the attention of the family members to the metal monsters that had begun to creep into the area.
At ten o'clock in the morning of Thursday, June 27, the tanks and vehicles of the Israeli occupation army had invaded the neighborhood in a sudden manner, and reached deep inside it, taking advantage of the surprise factor, as the residents were accustomed to the forces infiltrating their areas at night after darkness had cast its curtains, and not in broad daylight as was the case this time.
The residents of Beit Al-Jamal heard the sounds of the engines of the vehicles, accompanied by violent shelling and heavy gunfire, and they realized that they were surrounded and that their lives were in real danger.
Six people were found in the house located on Al-Nazzaz Street: the mother, Safiya Al-Jammal (65 years old), her son, Muhannad (28 years old), her daughters, Naseeba (34 years old), Arej (30 years old), Hadeel (25 years old), and her granddaughter, Mona (one and a half years old).

Hours of horror..
The family members were terrified, especially since the occupation forces were stationed in front of their house and began to bulldoze a nearby plot of land. They moved to the second floor of the house, gathered in a room in the middle of the apartment, and locked themselves in the door.
At sunset, after hours of fear and anticipation, what the family feared happened, as a giant bulldozer began to demolish the house from the back.
The besieged people began to supplicate to God and repeat the “Testimony of Faith” believing that the soldiers would kill them by demolishing the house on their heads. But suddenly, the soldiers stormed the house until they reached the room where the family members were, who began to call out to the soldiers, saying, “We are civilians.”
But the soldiers did not care, and fired a hail of bullets, then threw the first hand grenade into the room, then followed it with 4 more grenades.
The Jamal family members threw themselves on the ground and took cover with the few pieces of furniture, which did not prevent them from being hit by the shrapnel of the hand grenades. The mother, Safiya, sustained a large wound in her chest, and her four sons were injured by shrapnel in various parts of their bodies.
"They threw five bombs at us in a row, and they were shooting, and my sisters were screaming, 'We are civilians and do not pose a threat,' but they did not stop," Muhannad told Al Jazeera Net. After that, soldiers entered the room, amid screaming and shooting from rifles at the walls.
The mother's chest wound looked large, no less than 15 centimeters long. She was calling out to the soldiers, "I'm dying, I'm dying," but they didn't care. They asked the only young man (Muhannad) to take off his clothes and took him to another place for investigation.
Safiyya's daughters gathered around her, began to cry and asked the soldiers to help her, saying, "My mother is dying, my mother is dying, her wound is big."
After a while, the soldiers forced the girls to leave their mother, took them outside the house, and ordered them to head west to Salah al-Din Street, amidst the darkness, shelling, and sounds of gunfire, passing between columns of tanks.

Crushing with tank tracks..
As for Muhannad, after the soldiers interrogated him, they returned him to the room where his mother was, then asked him to carry her on a medical stretcher, accompanied by one of the soldiers, and take her out of the house. They put him and his mother inside a tank, which moved to a destination he did not know.
After a while, the tank stopped, and the soldiers took Muhannad down, then threw his mother on the ground. The soldiers had deceived the son, and convinced him that they were waiting for an ambulance to take her for treatment, but they were planning something else.
Suddenly, Muhannad was shocked by a tank reversing and trampling on his wounded mother's body until it turned her into torn pieces.
"There were three tanks surrounding us, one of them suddenly reversed and ran over my mother, I lost my mind and started screaming," the young man said. "The tank ran over her on purpose, she could have turned around and avoided it, but it deliberately ran over her."
The series of gratuitous killings did not stop, as a second tank tried to run over Muhannad himself, but he retreated and fled, so he thought that they would shoot him, but they did not.
In the darkness of the night, Muhand started screaming at the top of his voice in case someone heard him, but he was only answered by silence.

Tough situation..
After the three tanks left the area, Muhannad returned to his mother, and was surprised to find a group of stray dogs trying to devour her body. He took a piece of iron from the ground and waved it at them, and they ran away.
The situation was difficult for Muhannad, he did not know what to do: his mother's body was scattered in front of him in the darkness, the dogs were watching him from afar waiting for him to leave, his wound from the shrapnel of the hand grenades that were thrown at them was bleeding, the sounds of explosions and gunfire were non-stop, and at the same time he did not know the fate of his sisters.
He tried to gather his mother's body and carry it, but his strength was failing him. The horror he saw made him so weak that he was unable to carry a small stone. Even if he had been able to do that, he did not know where to take her amidst these clashes and battles.
Finally, Muhannad decided to cover his mother's body well, then fled the place through side streets. He recalls, "I said, 'May God have mercy on my mother,' and I knew her fate, and I wanted to look for my sisters."
Muhannad continued walking with difficulty in the darkness and the sound of explosions and bullets, crying and sobbing, until he reached Baghdad Street and headed north from it. Fortunately for him, he did not encounter any of the occupation forces, until he was able to leave the Shuja'iyya neighborhood and reach the neighboring Tuffah neighborhood.
On the way, Muhannad remembered his father, Rashad Al-Jammal, who was killed by the occupation army during the current war as well, specifically last February, as a result of a bombing that targeted a house to which the family had fled west of Gaza City.
The next day, the young man began searching for his sisters, until he learned that they were in the Baptist Hospital, where they were receiving treatment for injuries caused by shrapnel from hand grenades that the occupation army had thrown at them.
Muhannad met his sisters in the hospital, and after he told them what happened to their mother, everyone cried a lot.