Umm Khaled Al-Malbouh found death approaching her and her family, so she handed over her matter to her Creator and said, "Let us die with some of the better." Her options for protecting her children and grandchildren were lacking and she preferred to die together, but fate was merciful to them and they miraculously survived a certain death.

An Israeli missile hit the family’s home in the town of Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, collapsing them, but two large pieces of concrete embraced and formed a kind of "dome" over the six family members, preventing the debris from falling over their heads.

Khaled Al-Malfouh after he was pulled out from under the rubble (communication sites)

New life

The clock had gone past 12 shortly after midnight, when Khaled, 25, went to pick up his clothes hanging on the balcony of the apartment in which they live in the town of Beit Lahiya. From the horror of the shock, "There is no god but God .. God is great."

Khaled quickly got up to his mother and sister, who had sought refuge with them with her three children on the same day, after her house was bombed and her husband's father was wounded, and before he quickly completed his request for them to leave the apartment and go down to the ground floor of the house for more safety.

A second missile fell, shook the corners of the house.

Khaled says - to Al-Jazeera Net - without thinking I threw myself at my mother and hugged her to protect her, and my sister and her children were next to us, and we all sat in the corner of a room, and if the rockets were falling profusely, my mother said - and her arms were barely expanding for all of us - "Let us die with some of the best."

Moments and the house collapsed as a result of a missile that directly hit it, only to find the family itself suspended between the first two floors and the ground for about 45 minutes. Khaled describes those moments that their fate was oscillating between life and death, but he says, "An arc of concrete prevented the collapse of the house above our heads."

The wounds that afflicted Al-Malbouh and his family did not lose their consciousness, and Khaled prejudiced his pain and began to tighten his mother and sister's burden, and reassured the children, "We will go out and live ... just say, Oh God."

Ambulance and civil defense crews recovered the Al-Malfouh family. Khaled was injured in the back, not seriously, and his mother suffered fractures in her legs, and his sister Alaa and her children (5 years), Muhammad (3 years) and Zina (2 years) were injured, and they were admitted to the "Indonesian Hospital" for treatment .

Raafat al-Tanani and his martyr family members (communication sites)

A miracle adjoins a massacre

If the Al-Malbouh family had escaped certain death;

The al-Tanani family - which lives on the second floor of the same house and is separated by a concrete roof - has martyred its six members.

After many hours, during which the rubble was like "temporary graves" for the al-Tanani family, the bodies of the father, Ra`fat Muhammad al-Tanani, 39, and his pregnant wife, Rawya Fathi al-Tanani (37 years), and their children Ismail (7), Adham (6), and Amir (5) were recovered 4 years old), and Mohammed (4 years old).

Shortly before the massacre took place, Khaled said, I met my neighbor Raafat who was afraid of the "frenzied Israeli targeting" of residential homes. He was reassured and we parted, and I did not know that he smelled death and breathed his last breath in life.

According to Khaled, more than 10 airstrikes were launched by Israeli aircraft on the area without prior warning, and they caused total destruction in 7 homes and massive damage to other homes and civilian institutions.

Initial official estimates indicate that the Israeli air strikes destroyed - during the ongoing war on Gaza for the sixth consecutive day - more than 500 housing units completely, and resulted in the wiping of entire families from the civil registry.