The woman’s name is Sabah Abu Halima. She lays on a bed here, wrapped in bandages, mourning the loss of her husband and four of her children. They died in an Israeli shelling attack in El-Atatra, near Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, an area with a mix of villages and agricultural fields. Israel says that the area around their house was being used by Hamas militants.
Two others in the house, a granddaughter and daughter-in-law, were also badly burned and transferred to Egypt for treatment. The Jan. 5 attack provides what Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst for Human Rights Watch (HRW), calls “the single most compelling case” of white phosphorus use by the Israeli army.
