Voices from The Rubble

Standing with his grieving wife, Khaled Abed Rabu insists on showing the old report cards of his 7-year-old daughter Suwad as if the fact that she was an excellent student makes her death any more unfair or inexplicable. He reads out the teacher's comments in a faltering voice. "See?" he says. "She was the best student in her class."

You can measure the destruction in Gaza by the number of bombs dropped or buildings flattened or the price to rebuild it all, but the real cost lies within people like Abed Rabu, whose pain and sense of loss are apparent from the moment you meet him. Two weeks after the end of Israel's 22-day operation against Hamas militants, the battle to control the story of what happened in Gaza continues. The U.N. and human-rights groups accuse the Israeli military of using disproportionate force and even of committing war crimes. The Israeli government has responded to such charges by arguing that Hamas deliberately positioned weapons and fighters in areas populated by civilians. Israel has begun investigating some of the more egregious allegations about civilian deaths, which are multiplying as Gaza picks itself up from the rubble. One such account was presented to Time by Abed Rabu. (See pictures of heartbreak in the Middle East.)

Abed Rabu says his daughter Suwad died in Gaza on Jan. 7, the day Israeli tanks churned across the strawberry fields and knocked their way into a little park about 20 yards (18 m) from the family home. Residents of Jebel al-Kashif recall being warned by the Israelis through loudspeakers to evacuate their homes. "There was no fighting, so we weren't too worried when the Israelis told us to leave," Abed Rabu recalls. "I told my girls, 'Don't be scared. We've done nothing to the Israelis, so they won't hurt us.'"

The patriarch says he herded his wife, mother and three young daughters, Amal, 2; Samar, 4; and Suwad to the door and gave the children a white flag to wave. "Two Israeli soldiers were beside their tank, eating chocolate and potato chips," he recounts, waving empty wrappers bearing Hebrew writing that he found later in the debris. "It was like a picnic for them."

According to Abed Rabu, a third Israeli soldier then popped out of the tank with an M-16 and fired a single shot. "I didn't understand what happened," says Abed Rabu. "I thought he was firing in the air, and then I looked down and saw my 2-year-old daughter lying there with her insides spilling out.

"I started screaming, 'Why are you doing this?' And then the soldier shot my two other girls. My wife fainted. And when my mother tried to drag Suwad inside the house, the soldier shot my mother in the chest, her shoulder and her leg."

Interviews with Abed Rabu's wife Kauthar, his mother-in-law and three neighbors, including Saad Abed Rabu and Khadra Abed Rabu (from the same clan), matched his account of the shootings, and certainly the family's grief and anger appear genuine. Two of the daughters died of bullet wounds, Palestinian doctors say, while the third, Samar, was evacuated from Shifa Hospital by the Red Crescent through Egypt and airlifted to a Belgian hospital, where she lies paralyzed. "Samar still doesn't know that her two sisters died," says Abed Rabu. "We don't want to shock her while she is still so fragile."

See pictures of Israeli soldiers sweeping into Gaza.

See pictures of life under Hamas in Gaza.

Whether the Israeli troops believed they were under threat when they opened fire is unclear. Most residents of Jebel al-Kashif claim there were no Hamas fighters in the area at the time of the alleged incident, but a middle-aged farmer in a battered army jacket took me aside and said, in a near whisper, that Hamas had been firing rockets from the vicinity of where the episode took place. An Israeli military spokesman told journalists investigating the shootings that the army had no information on the alleged incident but said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is "currently engaged in postoperational investigations." The IDF has stressed that Israeli troops were under orders to protect civilians during the offensive and have accused Hamas fighters of using civilians as human shields.

After the shootings, Abed Rabu says, he dragged his wounded children and mother into the doorway and shouted for help. "I could see an ambulance nearby," he says. The ambulance driver, Samiyeh al-Sheikh, who lives close by, said he heard shots and screams coming from Abed Rabu's house. "But when I tried to go toward them, the Israeli soldiers beat me up. Then, with a bulldozer, the soldiers backed the ambulance against my house and crushed it like sand." The twisted wreckage of the ambulance, partly buried under a house, was visible when reporters arrived several days later.

Inside his house, Abed Rabu moved his injured family under the staircase for protection. Frantic, he began phoning the Red Crescent, friends with cars, anyone who might help him reach a hospital. His 2-year-old daughter, shot in the stomach, was demanding water. "I wet her lips with my finger. It was all I could do," says Kauthar, the mother.

For two hours, Abed Rabu says, he was unable to summon help or move from the house. He says he pleaded with the soldiers to let him leave with his injured family, but they refused. Finally, his aged father picked up Samar in his arms and stood in the doorway. He said, "I'm willing to risk my life to take her to the hospital." This time, Abed Rabu says, the soldiers allowed them out. He and nine family members followed, carrying the two other wounded children and their grandmother. "I couldn't tell if Suwad and Amal were still breathing, but there was still a chance they might be alive," says Abed Rabu. "As we walked up the road, the soldiers shot at the dirt around our feet." Abed Rabu says he carried his daughters more than a mile. By the time they reached the hospital, the girls were dead.

Abed Rabu sits alone beside his blasted home. "I don't understand. I'm not Hamas. My girls weren't Hamas. Why did they do this to us?" he asks. In a reply to TIME's query, the military press office said, "The Israel Defense Forces is an ethical army and ... has no knowledge of such an incident."