A/HRC/12/48 page 162 715. Saleh al-Samouni stated that overall 21 family members were killed and 19 injured in the attack on Wa’el al-Samouni’s house. The dead include Saleh al-Samouni’s father, Talal Helmi al-Samouni, his mother, Rahma Muhammad al-Samouni, and his two-year-old daughter Azza. Three of his sons, aged five, three and less than one year (Mahmoud, Omar and Ahmad), were injured, but survived. Of Wa’el’s immediate family, a daughter and a son (Rezqa, 14, and Fares, 12) were killed, while two smaller children (Abdullah and Muhammad) were injured.402 The photographs of all the dead victims were shown to the Mission at the home of the al-Samouni family and displayed at the public hearing in Gaza. 716. After the shelling of Wa’el al-Samouni’s house, most of those inside decided to leave immediately and walk to Gaza City, leaving behind the dead and some of the wounded. The women waved their scarves. Soldiers, however, ordered the al-Samounis to return to the house. When family members replied that there were many injured among them, the soldiers’ reaction was, according to Saleh al-Samouni, “go back to death”. They decided not to follow this injunction and walked in the direction of Gaza City. Once in Gaza, they went to PRCS and told them about the injured that had remained behind. 3. The attempts of PRCS and ICRC to rescue the civilians in the al-Samouni area 717. PRCS had made its first attempt to evacuate the injured from the al-Samouni area on 4 January 2009 around 4 p.m. after receiving a call from the family of Ateya al-Samouni. PRCS had called ICRC, asking it to coordinate its entry into the area with the Israeli armed forces. A PRCS ambulance from al-Quds hospital managed to reach the al-Samouni area. The ambulance had turned west off Salah ad-Din Street when, at one of the first houses in the area, Israeli soldiers on the ground and on the roof of one of the houses directed their guns at it and ordered it to stop. The driver and the nurse were ordered to get out of the vehicle, raise their hands, take off their clothes and lie on the ground. Israeli soldiers then searched them and the vehicle for 5 to 10 minutes. Having found nothing, the soldiers ordered the ambulance team to return to Gaza City, in spite of their pleas to be allowed to pick up some wounded. In his statement to the Mission, the ambulance driver recalled seeing women and children huddling under the staircase in a house, but not being allowed to take them with him.403 718. As soon as the first evacuees from the al-Samouni family arrived in Gaza City on 5 January, PRCS and ICRC requested permission from the Israeli armed forces to go into the al Samouni neighbourhood to evacuate the wounded. These requests were denied. On 6 January around 6.45 p.m., one ICRC car and four PRCS ambulances drove towards the al-Samouni area The names of the other 15 members of the extended al-Samouni family killed in the attack on Wa’el alSamouni’s house are: Rabab Izaat (female, aged 37); Tawfiq Rashad (male, aged 22); Layla Nabeeh (female, aged 44); Ismaeil Ibrahim (male, aged 16); Ishaq Ibrahim (male, aged 14); Maha Muhammad (female, aged 20); Muhammad Hilmi Talal (the six-year-old son of Maha); Hanan Khamis Sa'di (female, aged 36); Huda Naiel (female, aged 17); Rezqa Muhammad Mahmoud (female, aged 56); Safaa Sobhi (female, aged 24); al-Moa'tasim Bilah Muhammad (male, aged six months); Hamdi Maher (male, aged 24); Rashad Helmi (male, aged 42); Nassar Ibrahim Hilmi (male, aged 6). 402 403 Mission interview with PRCS driver W2, 10 June 2009.