A group of men in Gaza, holding a white flag, told ITV News they wanted to rescue their family members – minutes later one was shot dead as John Irvine reports
The English-speaking man lamented the fact that having fled Gaza City when this war began, the family were now running away again, this time abandoning Khan Younis to head for Rafah.
Their attempts to escape the war have taken them from the top of the Gaza Strip to the bottom.
They are among hundreds of thousands of people hemmed in, with their backs to the Egyptian border and the IDF bearing down.
“Nowhere is safe in Gaza,” he told a cameraman working for ITV News.
“Everywhere you find the Israeli Army. They shoot at us at home, in any building and in the street.”
He had no way of knowing just how prophetic his words were because minutes later, the cameraman filmed an innocent civilian being shot dead in the street.
The cameraman noticed Ramzi Abu Sahloul because he was among a group of five males standing still, their hands up, one of them brandishing a white flag.
Speaking on camera, Mr Abu Sahloul said they were trying to reach his mother and brother to escort them out of harm’s way.
Billowing plumes of smoke and the sound of gunfire indicated that combat was taking place nearby.
The interview complete, the cameraman walked away.
He then turned to get one last picture of the group when suddenly, there was a sharp loud volley of shots.
The five started to run, but within seconds Mr Abu Sahloul collapsed on the ground.
He’d been shot in the chest. One of the men placed the flag on his wounds.
Between them, they lifted him and as they carried him away you could clearly make out the white flag turning red.
The 51-year-old husband and father wasn’t moving and it seems his death was almost instantaneous.
As they tried to carry him to safety, there was the sound of more gunfire and the whoosh of a bullet passing nearby suggested the group was still being targeted.
Eventually they got the body to a safer place, where his wife, his widow, began to wail and mourn her loss.
Mr Abu Sahloul sold children’s clothes for a living.
In response to a request from ITV News, the IDF said it categorically denies any existence of “field executions”.
An IDF statement read: “It is imperative to emphasise that the alarming, libelous and a gross mischaracterisation of the war with these despicable accusations can only be deemed as an extension of Hamas’ propaganda effort to defame the IDF and undermine our objective to dismantle Hamas and ensure the terrorist entity never again holds the power to build a terrorist army, invade Israel, murder, burn, rape and abduct Israelis.”
Follow STV News on WhatsApp
Scan the QR code on your mobile device for all the latest news from around the country
