A/HRC/12/48 page 169 Hamas”, which he denied assuring them that nobody in the area was a member of either Hamas or Fatah. Mrs. Hajji remembers the soldiers laughing and insisting that Nasser Hajji “was Hamas”. The laughing added to her pain, as the soldiers had seen her dead husband and the children. Nasser Hajji was ordered to undress and then pull his brother’s body to another room, where the soldiers threw mattresses and blankets on the body (the body was still lying in the same position when Abir Hajji returned to her home two weeks later). Her children asked her whether they would be killed as well. She told them to say the Shehada, the prayer recited in the face of death. Mrs. Hajji also recalled that the soldiers were breaking the tiles on the floor of the house and digging in the earth below. Asked about this at the public hearing, she expressed the opinion that this was to obtain sand for the sandbags they subsequently placed on the roof of the house.419 748. After some time, during which they were sitting on the ground as ordered by the Israeli soldiers, Mrs. Hajji, her children and Nasser Hajji were taken to Nasser’s house. There they found four households of the extended Hajji family. The young men had been handcuffed and four of them also blindfolded. About 60 Israeli soldiers were in the house. Mrs. Hajji recalled them carrying around food and drinks and relaxing in the couches. One of her daughters asked to be allowed to eat something. The soldiers first denied her request, but then allowed her to go into the kitchen and get a small piece of bread. 749. After the midday prayers on 5 January 2009, the Israeli soldiers separated the men from the women and children. The latter were ordered to walk to Rafah. The Hajjis protested, asking to be allowed to go to Gaza City, where they had relatives, but the soldiers told them that they would be shot if they tried to walk to Gaza City. Nasser Hajji and his 18-year-old son were allowed to walk with the women and children, while the other men stayed behind.420 750. The group of Hajji family members walked down the alley to al-Sekka Street. There they were joined by members of the Arafat family, who also live in the al-Samouni neighbourhood, carrying white flags. On al-Sekka Street, one of the Israeli soldiers standing on a rooftop ordered the families to turn south and walk towards Rafah. The families begged to be allowed to walk to Gaza City instead. Without warning, the Israeli soldiers opened fire, “shooting at random” according to Abir Hajji. Ola Masood Arafat, a 28-year-old woman, was struck by a bullet and died on the spot. Mrs. Hajji was wounded in her right arm. Her three-year-old daughter Shahd was shot in the chest. Abir Hajji, who was still carrying Shahd, her other children, her mother-inlaw and others managed to take refuge in a house. There they found out that Shahd was still alive. 751. Later on, they left the house and walked together with other families to Salah ad-Din Street and then south on that road. When they reached the Gaza wadi, a motorist took Abir Hajji and her daughter Shahd to a hospital in Deir al-Balah. Shahd died of her wound very soon after Soldiers’ Testimonies… suggests that breaking the tiles in civilian homes was a standard practice with two purposes: to fill sandbags ( “Take for example the house we were in – it was abandoned and you go about it as if you own it. You break floor tiles to make sandbags, you break stuff to prepare an outpost”, testimony 46, p. 100,) and to search for tunnels (“You're also told to wreck the floor tiles to check for tunnels”, testimony 23, p. 54) 419 Abir Hajji learned after the armed operations that they had been detained in that house for another three days and then released. 420