GAZA (PIC)– The Israeli massacre of five Palestinian girls of the Balousha family in 2008 was remembered by their parents who said that they are still seeking justice to punish the killers of their beloved daughters.
On December 29 2008 the second day of the vicious Israeli war on Gaza an Israeli F-16 war plane dropped a heavy bomb on a local mosque in Jabalya district north of the Gaza Strip leveling it to the ground and destroying home of the Balousha family that was located three meters away from the mosque killing five of his daughters under the rubbles.
Pictures of the five daughters Tahrir 18 Ekram 15 Samar 13 Dina 8 and Jawahir 4 were hanged on the walls of the main room of the house that the family had rebuilt again with the feeling of sorrow and grief still engulfing the family every time they recall what had happened.
“I feel that the house still empty my five beloved daughters indeed left a big gap in our life and although I like to always feel that they are present with us but the fact would remain there and we feel that we lack something precious in our life” the bereaved father Anwar Balousha said.
Although equanimity of Anwar and the expressions of his face try to hide the suffering that his family had passed through as a result of the massacre yet his words clearly tell of the deep scar the loss of his five daughters had left on him and on his family.
“My wife was deeply affected by the calamity. Indeed she cried too much as she recalled the war when she saw a team of UNRWA workers yesterday removing the rubbles of one of the destroyed homes beside us” Balousha pointed out.
He said that he is spending a lot of his time standing before the graves of his daughters telling them details of his daily life. “I miss them too much and this makes me return back to the house and search for them even for a moment before I realize that they are dead” he added.
Furthermore Balousha asserted that the massacre of his daughters has affected his eldest daughter and his only son saying “My eldest daughter Iman 20 was brilliant at school before the incident but now she is always absent minded and her performance at school deteriorated because her sister Dina died between her two arms and my son Mohammed always searches for new friends to play with “.
Balousha filed a case against the Israeli occupation forces in Israeli courts since the incident without any result so far. He said:” If they (Israelis) give me all the money of this world they will never pay for my daughters. I don’t need the money; I need my five daughters back”.
The incident made Balousha and his wife live in fear over the future of their remaining children every time the Israelis carryout a raid on Gaza Strip.
