Nasser and his daughter Maissa, in one of their
tents

Nasser Jaber Ismail Abu Said (38) is from a family of refugees and lives
in Johr al Dik, a small farming village east of Gaza City. Until 2010, he lived
with his parents in their house located approximately 300 meters from the
Palestinian-Israeli border. He is married and has five children, four boys, Ala
(11), Beha (10), Sahad (9) and Jaber (4), and one girl Maissa (6). He says that
“We used to be very happy, we used to work in our land and we were doing well.
My parents were on the first floor and we were on the second with the kids. The
children used to play on the street, and we used to sit in the street, watching
TV with our families.” However, everything changed on the evening of 13 July
2010.

 “We were sitting outside,
drinking tea and watching television when we heard shelling,” Nasser recalls.
“We all ran inside the house immediately. The children were screaming, it was
dark and we didn’t see anything. My wife Naama realized that our small son
Jaber was still outside and she dashed to find him. But there were still
shooting and shelling all around.” When Nasser went to look for her, he found
his wife lying on her back: “I was trying to get her up and I was hoping she
had fainted. I called her, spoke to her but she didn’t reply. I tried to carry
her, but my hand went inside her head.”

Naama had been hit by a flechette shell. After this attack, Nasser moved
with his 5 children to a tent placed 200 meters away from the house and 500
meters from the Palestinian-Israeli border, with his second wife Ishan (30) and his new daughter Naama (8 months), who was named
in honor of his first wife. They eventually started returning to the site of
their home during the day in September 2010, but continued to sleep in the
tents.

On 28 April 2011, the children were reading, studying and preparing for
their exams on the second floor when the house came under sustained attack:
“There was a lot of smoke and dust, I couldn’t see. The walls were completely
destroyed and I couldn’t find my children. Everything happened so fast, the
electricity went off, and I just heard extremely loud explosions. I started to
look for my kids and they were under the rubble.” Three of his children were
injured, Ala, Beha and Maissa, as well as his brother Mohamed and his wife
Sanah’. After a few days, they came back to the house to estimate the damage.
Nasser remembers that “the second floor was completely gone.” He decided to go
back to the tent and settle here, while he figures out another place to live,
further away from the border.

Since then, Nasser has been living with his family in their camp, made
up of three small tents. The tents allow for two rooms, one room “for the
guest,” with a kitchen, small bathroom, and two tanks for drinking water: “I
got the electricity from my brother and pipe for the water, and we have a
television.” As a refugee, Nasser receives basic food aid every three months.

 “Why is this happening to us? We
have lived for 40 years in peace, we never harmed anyone, and we never had
criminal charges brought against us. If it’s just an accident why should my
wife and kids pay the price, and our house be demolished?”

According to the second paragraph of Article 8 (b)(i) and (ii) of the
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the “intentionally directing
attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians
not taking direct part in hostilities;” and “intentionally directing attacks
against civilian objects, that is, objects which are not military objectives”
constitute a war crime. Furthermore, as an Occupying Power, Israel has an
obligation to respect and ensure “the right of everyone to an adequate standard
of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and
housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions,” according to
Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights.