WaPo reports on the As-Samouni family:

The Israeli military has an uncanny talent for near mechanistic slaughter. One family, the Samouni's, lost 29 members! If this small-town family of farmers weren't being herded into a crowded house and shelled by the IDF, they were being shot at while attempting to flee, detained while pleading for help, bearing witness to the slow death of trapped loved-ones (the children of whom were later found emaciated and clinging to corpses), or suffering the cruelty of being denied access to the emergency care of the Red Cross for over three days. The Israeli military is currently under investigation for committing war crimes in Zaytoun.

Two days before the shell struck Wael Samuni's house, the Red Cross had begun negotiating with the Israeli army to get ambulances into Zaytoun to evacuate civilians. "For the first two days, people were calling and literally begging us to come get them,' " said Antoine Grand, head of the Red Cross in Gaza, who declined to allow the ambulance teams working those days to be interviewed.

"We said: 'We're doing our best. Hang on,' " Grand said. "Then their mobile phone batteries died."

"We normally have good coordination about these things," he added. "But for days we asked for a green light to get in there, and it wasn't granted. I don't know why. It is extremely frustrating."

Leibovich, the Israeli army spokeswoman, declined to comment on why the army had not allowed the Red Cross into Zaytoun. Grand corroborated Leibovich's assertion that there were clashes in the neighborhood but said that should not have prevented emergency workers from being given access.

"Look, on the one hand, we don't want to go in while the fighting is going on. But they weren't fighting 24 hours a day for all those days," Grand said, adding that there was an Israeli army post 100 yards from where the Samuni house was struck. "Permission could have been granted earlier."

On Jan. 7, the Red Cross was finally permitted to enter Zaytoun, during a three-hour pause in combat operations to allow for humanitarian relief. The wounded had to be evacuated by donkey cart, because the Israeli army would not move earthen barricades it had placed in the road, according to the Red Cross's report. There was not enough time to retrieve the dead until Jan. 18, when at least 21 bodies were removed from the site, Grand said. The Red Cross's investigation of the events will be completed in the next few months, he added, and will be "shared privately" with the Israeli government. READ MORE

-mr