A/HRC/12/48 page 204 B. The destruction of the Sawafeary chicken farms 942. On or around the night of 3 January 2009 Israeli troops arrived at a number of houses on al-Sekka Road in Zeytoun. The Mission interviewed four people who were direct witnesses to and victims of the events that occurred in the aftermath of their arrival. One witness was interviewed three times for a total of five hours and testified at the public hearings in Gaza.499 Another three were interviewed for an hour each. The Mission also visited the site of the Sawafeary chicken farms. Finally, the Mission addressed questions to the Government of Israel with regard to the military advantage pursued in attacking Mr. Sawafeary’s chicken farms, but received no reply. The following narrative reflects the eyewitness accounts. 943. Sameh Sawafeary is a chicken farmer. His family has been in the egg production business for many years. He indicated that he, his brothers and his children owned 11 chicken farms in Zeytoun as of December 2008. The farms housed more than 100,000 chickens. 944. On 3 January, Mr. Sawafeary, who was in his home on al-Sekka Road in the al-Samouni neighbourhood of Zeytoun with his family, was alerted by an al-Jazeera television news broadcast at around 8 p.m. that an Israeli ground invasion was imminent.500 As a result, he took a number of precautions, including hiding money and other valuables. He then gathered around 11 members of his family on the upper floor of the two-storey concrete house. At around 10 p.m. a missile struck the house, entering through the rear of the upper floor and exiting near the window of the living room opposite. The missile passed over several of Mr. Sawafeary’s children and grandchildren, who were lying on the floor. No one was injured. 945. At around 11 p.m., Mr. Sawafeary heard the sound of helicopters flying over his house followed by soldiers landing on his roof. The soldiers remained there until 7 a.m. the next morning, firing what he described as “a rain of bullets”. The family stayed, terrified, on the floor of an upstairs room. 946. At around 7.15 a.m. on 4 January, soldiers came into the upstairs room where the family was sheltering. They separated the men from the women and put the women in another room. The hands of the men and the boys were tied behind their backs, except for one of Mr. Sawafeary’s sons who has only one arm. After some time the commander told Mr. Sawafeary that they should walk south and “go to Rafah”. The soldiers then searched the house. The 11 members of the household there at the time left the house as instructed. 947. The Sawafeary family spent the following five days in terror. Together with neighbouring families they spent one night in the Abu Zur house and the following three in the nearby house of Mr. Rajab Mughrabi. During that time they suffered a number of violations at the hands of the Israeli armed forces, including the killing of the child Ibrahim Juha (see chap. XI). 948. For the purposes of this section the Mission refers to the information it received about the systematic destruction that occurred for several days and which the witnesses were able to see during the time they were forced by the circumstances to remain in the house of Mr. Mughrabi. 499 Interviewed by the Mission in Gaza on 3 June and 14 June and at the Gaza public hearing on 29 June. 500 The previous night, a garage next door had been destroyed by an air strike.