On the street in central Gaza City where the family of Khalil al-Bahtini lived, the contents of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad commander’s home and the two houses on either side remain spilled out into the street. Passersby must navigate the rubble and crumpled shell of a water tank, as well as the debris of an annihilated family life: a red teddy bear, kitchen utensils, scraps of books and clothing.
The Adas family were not the targets of the airstrike that hit their neighbour’s house at about 2am on 9 May, in the opening salvo of Israel’s Shield and Arrow operation, but the buildings were less than a metre apart. The GBU-39 bomb that crashed through three floors of the Bahtini home, down into the basement, also blew apart one side of the Adas’s house, killing the family’s two teenage daughters. Dania, 19, died immediately, while her sister, Imam, 17, clung to life for two hours before succumbing to her injuries in hospital.
