The second floor has four rooms, two facing south and two facing north. The south side of the house is dangerous because less than 250 meters away there is an Israeli military observation tower called the Zo’rub Tower. A lot of bullets hit our house and there are bullet marks on the doors, windows, walls and balconies. Our bedroom used to be on that side, but because of the danger we moved to a room on the north side. The southwest room, which is the most exposed, is deserted, and in the northwest room there is a small clinic.
On Sunday, 28 November 2004, Samir got home around 3:00 P.M., relatively early. He was at the hospital from 8:00 A.M. to 2:00 P.M. He often worked until later. He had lunch and sat down to help the kids with their homework. Then someone came to him for treatment. Half an hour later, he finished examining him and returned to the children. In the meantime, they had finished their homework and he played with them. He was a devoted father and spent a lot of time with the children. They loved him very much. Samir played with them until seven in the evening and then I brought the kids dinner. Samir, who had eaten at three, was not hungry yet, but he sat with them at the table because they liked to eat with him. They said that if he didn’t eat with them, they wouldn’t eat, so he pretended to eat. After dinner, he read them stories and they fell asleep about 7:30 P.M.
After the kids fell asleep, Samir worked on the computer in the kids’ room and I sat in the living room studying for a test. I am a student at the Department of Religion at the Khan Yunis branch of the Islamic University. At around 8:00 P.M., I heard massive shooting and shelling by Israelis coming from the east. There were tanks near the Zo’rub Tower and along the border with Egypt, 1-1.5 kilometers southeast of our house. I didn’t get worked up about it because we’d gotten used to shooting of that kind, usually in the evening. It has been that way since the al-Aqsa Intifada began.
A little after 8:00 P.M., Samir got a call from the hospital that he was needed urgently. He went to get ready and before he left, he checked on the kids, just to make sure they were okay. He opened the door to the room and looked out from the balcony. Then he went back into the room, closed the balcony door and looked at the children. At that moment, he was hit in the stomach, on his right side. He cried out, “Ah, ah”. I ran to the room and saw him with his hand on his stomach. He told me he’d been hit and fell over. The children, who had woken up from the shooting, were screaming. Samir didn’t say anything else and then he fainted.
I called an ambulance and told them Dr. Samir Hijazi had been hit and they must come quickly. I hung up and went back to Samir. I didn’t know what to do. I said: “What can I do to help you?” I was terrified, shouting and crying. That was about 8:30. After about 15 minutes, I heard the ambulance outside, but they didn’t know exactly where our house was, so I went out on the balcony and called out to them. They carried Samir away. I told them he needed urgent help.
Then I went to my father-in-law’s house and left the children there. I went to the hospital and waited there for about an hour. Then the doctors informed me that he had internal bleeding and that they needed blood. But at 10:00 P.M. they said it was no longer necessary, because he had died. Later I heard on the radio that many people were injured in our area that evening and the following day.
I went to my father-in-law’s house and we have stayed with him ever since. I can’t go back to the house my husband was killed in, and in which I have such precious memories of him.
A father of two, Rafah, the Gaza Strip, 28 November 2004
The testimony of Nisreen Hijazi, 26, Samir’s widow
The testimony was given to Zaki Kahil on 5 December 2004
Our house is in the western part of Rafah and has two floors. We lived on the second floor – me, my husband Samir who was killed and my two children: Mahmoud, 8, and Banan, 6. The first floor was not ready yet and was intended to serve as a clinic for my husband, who was an orthopedist at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis. He didn’t manage to finish building his clinic.
I was only 26 when I was widowed and my children became orphans. The moment he was martyred and we lost him, my suffering and the hardship of raising children alone began.
When my husband was shot, he was inside the house. He was posing no danger to the Israeli army that killed him. He was a civilian standing in his children’s bedroom. The army knew what had happened, but they didn’t even express regret or apologize. Nobody was tried and held accountable, as if Israel is above the law.
Ever since I lost my husband, my life has been sad. I lost both my husband and the breadwinner who supported the children and me. The children grew up without their father and missed the chance to get to know him. They were denied his love, care and concern for their welfare and needs. They lost everything that was beautiful in their lives. They were robbed of the possibility to say: “Dad!” My husband loved the kids very much and was a very devoted father. They meant the world to him and he did everything for them. But the Israeli army’s bullets robbed them of him.
I, too, have suffered a lot since losing him. I raised the children alone, taught them and looked after them when they were sick. My life has been solitary. It was very difficult to continue my studies, and I did it only so I could find work to support the children. Many men proposed to me, but I refused to remarry because then the children would stay with my father-in-law and I wasn’t prepared to leave them.
I feel my husband’s absence in all social events, especially holidays and the kids’ birthdays. I always think of him during Ramadan. I miss his smile, his laughter and the love he bestowed upon our children. I miss the family feeling we had together. There is no point to life without him.
My son Mahmoud has just graduated his studies as a car electrician, and my daughter Bayan is in her third year of dentistry studies at the Palestine University in Gaza. Three years ago, when Bayan finished high school with a 91.3 average in the sciences, I missed him so much and wanted him by my side, so we could celebrate our daughter’s success together. Bayan also missed him a lot at that moment. She decided to study medicine because it’s what her father wanted when she was a little girl. In 2017, Mahmoud got married, but I felt no joy at the wedding. When we entered the wedding hall without his father, I was so sad and felt very difficult emotions. I so much wanted him to be with us, make us happy and see Mahmoud as a groom.
Nisreen Hijazi, now 40, met with B’Tselem field researcher Olfat al-Kurd this year and described life since her husband was killed:
When I heard that my husband had died of his wounds, I was shocked. I didn’t expect that to happen. He was hit in the stomach and I didn’t think he would die. I cried a lot and said over and over, “We belong to God and to Him we shall return”. I couldn’t handle what had happened, it was so sudden. Within minutes, I lost him. The funeral was held the next day. I hugged and kissed him and said, “Go in peace”. The children didn’t stop crying.
[…]
2. An operational inquiry found that at the time and place mentioned in your letter, shots were fired at suspicious persons who were crawling towards an area that is at high risk for hostile terrorist activity, at night.
3. Consequently, and as the open fire regulations do not appear to have been violated, the MAG did not see fit to order an MPIU investigation.
Letter to B’Tselem dated 16 July 2007 from Col. Liron Libman, Chief Military Prosecutor