Shukri Makadama: "Where are your religious people, when they see children being slaughtered?"
(Photo: Photo by Miki Kratsm)

New widower Shukri al-Makadama lies on the floor of his brother's house, lighting cigarette after cigarette. His neck is encased in plaster, due to a possible fractured vertebra caused by a wall falling on top of him. He mourns his dead wife and moans in pain.

Staring at the ceiling, he quietly describes - in fluent Hebrew, from all the years he worked in Tel Aviv - the events of that terrible night when the Israel Defense Forces destroyed his house and his world, and killed his wife - Noha al-Makadama, a mother of 10, who was in her ninth month of pregnancy.

Late one night last week, the army came to demolish the house of the family of teenage terrorist Sami Abdel Salam, who was shot dead on February 9 after he and several others started shooting at IDF soldiers in the El Bureij refugee camp in Gaza. In the process, they also demolished the homes of seven other families - without warning and while the residents were inside. Before she lost consciousness, Noha, who was due to give birth any day, managed to shout to her husband to protect the children and to hand him the small purse that held the money she was saving for a washing machine. He shows us the blue purse, still full of coins.

Noha was buried alive under the rubble of her house last Monday, and her unborn child died with her. Brigadier General Gadi Shemani, the Gaza division commander, said the next day that the IDF has "no evidence" of the woman's death and thereby exempted himself and his soldiers from any responsibility for the despicable killing. Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said something similar and just as outrageous at the cabinet meeting. So, as a service to the defense minister and the division commander, the full story of the killing of Noha al-Makadama and her unborn child, crushed to death when their home was demolished by the IDF, is hereby presented.

You follow a narrow dirt alleyway leading off one of the main roads in the El Bureij refugee camp, one of the two main refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, until you come to a paved plaza. All the buildings on the far side of the plaza have been reduced to piles of rubble, including the house that the IDF intentionally demolished - the one belonging to the Al-Salam family - and the nearby houses that the IDF demolished not quite as intentionally. On the other side, one can see the ruins of the house of Hamas member Sheikh Mohammed Taha, 67, which the IDF also purposely demolished that same night.

You walk over the rocks and bits of clothing stuck among the wreckage until you reach the last room, at the end of the big field of rubble; this was the bedroom of Noha and Shukri al-Makadama, who lived in the house next door to that of the young terrorist. Two dampened walls still stand and someone has hung an impromptu cardboard memorial poster to Noha on a fan that hangs from what's left of the ceiling. The double bed is so covered with rocks that it's hardly visible. A book protrudes from the rubble. A 15-year-old neighbor, Jihad Abu Husni, stands atop the rubble and uses the sweeping hand gestures of a tour guide as he describes what happened here that night.

What is left of the Makadama family's house is on the verge of collapse. The same is true of the neighbors' homes. The homes of the Abu Riya family, the two houses of the Badwan families, the Makadama family, the Shahin family, the Ushah family, as well as the home of the Hir family across the way. All were destroyed - unintentionally. About 90 people have been left homeless because of the neighbors' son, 17-year-old Sami Abdel al-Salam, who set out in the name of the Jerusalem Brigades of Islamic Jihad to attack IDF soldiers at the Orhan outpost near Gush Katif, and was killed. His family's home - the two bedrooms and living room that were home to 10 people - was slated for destruction. For deterrence's sake.

Sami's bereaved father, Adel, now wanders about the rubble in a blue sweatsuit, beside himself. He says his hands were bound and he was blindfolded and then his house was blown up. It happened at 12:30 A.M. last Monday. He says he was given a minute to get his family out of the house. He says that a soldier also took the money that was in his wallet. He spoke to Sami before he went to school on the day he was killed. At three that afternoon, he heard on the news that Sami had been killed together with two older friends, Mohammed Nimar and Suleiman Maqaded, in their car. They were armed and had opened fire on the soldiers. The father doesn't know anything more about it.

All the neighbors want to show us the remains of their houses. Jamal Ushah says that the tanks arrived at midnight and demolished Mohammed Taha's house across the way 15 minutes later. Then, at 12:30 A.M., their row of houses came under fire from the tanks and helicopters. Numerous bulletholes can be seen. The 12 people in this family crowded into the bathroom, where they waited fearfully until they suddenly heard a loud boom and their house collapsed. He says that no one warned them or called out to them to evacuate the house. On the contrary - he says a curfew was declared. The family survived in the bathroom.

Shukri al-Makadama tells his story: "We were awake. The children were sleeping. How can anyone sleep on a night like that? The eldest is 17 and the youngest, a girl, is not yet two years old. Noha was in her ninth month. Suddenly, a wall fell on us. I heard Noha yelling, `Help me! Help me!' I pushed myself to extricate myself from all the rocks and then I saw how the wall was lying on top of her and the children. This was in the bedroom, the innermost room of the house, where we had hidden from the gunfire from the tanks.

"I opened the door. I went out to the street and shouted to the neighbors to come help me. The tanks started shooting again and it was really terrifying. No one came to help. How could they help me? It's dark outside and no one can open the door of his house. I remembered that my little son - 5-year-old Yusuf - had been sleeping next to me. I started to take off all the rocks and throw them outside. After the first and second and third rock, he suddenly stuck out his hand and moved his fingers. I knew that he was still alive. I worked like a machine. I wanted him to be alive. I wanted to help him. I got him out, and then I suddenly saw the next oldest boy, Mohammed, who is 6, who had been sleeping next to him on the bed. I got him out, too. His head and his face were all bloody. Then I suddenly saw the shirt of my daughter Nur, who is 3 and a half. I saw her from the back. I got her out, too. Majd had been sleeping behind the bed. He's 17. I felt the rocks moving. I got the children out and went right back to him. I started to help him, and suddenly he poked his head out and said, `Help me, Dad, help me.' I told him: `You're going to help me so I can help you. Push yourself to get out. And that's how I got him out from all the rocks. Then he says to me, `Dad, here's my sister Nisma.' Nisma is 16.

"The room was all dark from the smoke and dust. `Where's Mommy?,' they said. I looked and I suddenly saw her under the rocks up to her shoulders, and there were small rocks and dust on her head, too. I started to pull her out. Majd and I did. I said to the kids, `Calm down. Don't worry. Everything's okay.' And they're screaming for their other siblings. I said, `Don't worry. Start pulling them out of here.' I felt like I was going to faint at that point. I couldn't breathe. Suddenly, a neighbor, Abu Khalil, who is a police officer, opened the door and asked, `Have the soldiers gone?' I told them that they'd all gone and asked him to help me. Right away he and his wife came to help, and another neighbor, Ashraf Shahin, and also two brothers from the Abu Khattab family. When they saw our situation, they didn't care about the risk to themselves. They started helping me.

"They saved Jamil and Nasim and Ala and Sajar. Now the only ones left were my wife and the 2-year-old girl, Mona. I told them that she was right in this spot on the bed. I suddenly heard the neighbors yelling that they could see her hair. Then they started to pull off the rocks and I could hear my wife say, `Help me, Shukri. Help me. Help the children. Get the children out.' Four or five times, she said, `Save the children, Shukri.' But then I didn't hear anymore. I passed out.

"When I opened my eyes, I saw how they were taking her and the baby out from under the rocks. The baby was also in very serious condition. I felt pains in my neck. They picked them up and took them to the neighbor's storeroom. They gave them air and called an ambulance. But the soldiers wouldn't let the ambulance come in. Abu Khalil's wife, who is a registered nurse, started to suction the sand and dust from the baby's nose and mouth, and also from my wife's. The neighbors said that if the ambulance couldn't get in, we should take her to the UNRWA clinic. They took her on a blanket. They'd gone about 50 or 60 meters when the soldiers opened fire again. Ahmed and Jamal and Zuhair put her down and fled because they were afraid.

"When the shooting stopped, neighbors came and picked her up and took her to the clinic. By the time they got there, she'd died. They took me to the hospital. When I was there, I asked: "Where is my wife? Where are the children?" I couldn't believe that anyone got out alive. I still can't believe that they're alive. Even when I see them, I can't believe it. Now they're all dispersed and staying with my brothers and sisters."

From the age of 12 until he was 32, Shukri worked in Israel. He worked in hospitals, and when he married Noha, he introduced her to the staff at Ichilov. He says he was once in charge of the cleaning services at Tel Aviv's Dizengoff Center and lived nearby. And at one point, he was a partner in a hummus restaurant on trendy Sheinkin Street. Neither he nor his wife ever thought that anything like this could happen to them. Now he doesn't know what to think.

"They destroyed my life. It's enough already. Enough, enough. But it won't help me now. This Sharon is increasing the hatred. I have 10 children. What am I going to tell them? That the Jews killed their mother? Not true. Only Sharon and Mofaz killed their mother. The nurses and doctors at Ichilov, the patients and their families - How can you say that they're bad? How can I tell my children that they're bad? But believe me, what Sharon is doing is a disgrace and it doesn't suit the Jewish people to choose such a person, such a bloodthirsty killer. What did my wife ever do to him? And the baby in her womb - What did it ever do?

"You don't know how happy we were and how eagerly we were awaiting the baby's birth. She'd started to prepare clothes for it. She said that on Thursday she'd buy whatever else the baby needed at the market. Does Sharon care if I'm alive? But however much he kills - There is a God. The Jewish people did not choose him. America chose him. In the 1982 war, I was in Tel Aviv and I saw how the Jewish people didn't agree with what he did at Sabra and Chatila. A real Jew wouldn't kill a cockroach, not even a cockroach.

"We're not living in 1920 or 1926 - This is the year 2003 and the whole world sees what Sharon is doing and they don't say, `Sharon' is doing it. They say it's the whole State of Israel. He's dragged all the Jews with him. Where are your religious people? Where are the Haredim, when they see children being slaughtered? Is this what it says in your Torah? That you should kill children? That you should kill pregnant women? What can I do? This is my fate. But I don't hate the Jews and anyone who knows me - I'm sure that they're angry and they would have come to visit me if they were able to. I send regards to all the people who knew me in Tel Aviv."