An alternative version of the events in HRWs "white flags" report
HRW version, from “White Flag Deaths,” August 2009:
“In one case documented in the report, on January 7 in eastern Jabalya, two women and three children from the ‘Abd Rabbo family were standing for a few minutes outside their home—at least three of them holding pieces of white cloth—when an Israeli soldier opened fire, killing two girls, aged two and seven, and wounding the grandmother and third girl. “We spent seven to nine minutes waving the flags and our faces were looking at them [the soldiers],” said the girls’ grandmother, who was shot twice. “And suddenly they opened fire and the girls fell to the ground.” Eyewitness accounts, tank tracks, an ammunition box and bullet casings found at the scene, and an examination of the grandmother by forensic experts indicate that an Israeli soldier fired upon identifiable and unarmed women and children.”
Alternate Version in Asharq Al-Awsat [Arabic]: “Khalid Abed Rabo to Shark Al Awsat: They killed my daughters in front of my eyes and I could not help them,” (January 21, 2009)
“Khaled Abed-Rabo, 32 years old, who was trapped in his house with members of his family for 15 days, told Al-Shark Alawsat (the Middle East): “We decided, my wife and I and my 3 kids, after Israel announced a “cease fire” (Tahadia) for 3 hours, to leave the house, especially for food and water, in addition to the lack of communication means to the external surroundings. We were about to step out, and our children were ahead of us, and the soldiers of the occupation met us with live bullets while we were stepping over the threshold of our house, and they killed two of my daughters, and the third of them was severally wounded.” And he added: “My wife and I couldn’t continue leaving the house in front of our daughters, even to offer help to them, and they died in front of our eyes due to the heavy fire…and therefore my elderly mother, 65 years old, could not bear to see that, and she burst and led us outside of the house, carrying a white flag, positive that her old age would prevent my wife and I from being targeted by the occupation [forces]. But only when she got close to the three girls who were on the floor, covered with their own blood, and a soldier shot and wounded her foot and she also drowned in her blood alongside the three girls”. (Translation by NGO Monitor staff)