Gaza: For a man who has dedicated his working life to helping Israeli citizens, Ezz Al Deen Abu Al Aish didn't expect an Israeli tank to fire two shells into his apartment and kill three of his daughters and his niece.
But the Palestinian fertility expert, who commutes from Gaza's Jabaliya refugee camp to the Israeli hospital where he works, has now seen his living room completely destroyed by two tank shells.
Gulf News visited his home. A large hole has been blown out of his third floor apartment, the other floors undamaged. The burnt skin and blood of the girls still line the ceiling and walls.
"The Israelis know the truth," he said. "I'm sure this was intentional. Two tank shells hit my apartment in the space of two minutes. This was calculated. The Israelis know my home well."
Abu Al Aish is still shaken by the incident. His voice, scratchy and weary, breaks frequently as he talks to me over the phone from Israel.
His story has received widespread attention in the Israeli media - one network aired a live interview with him in Israel, as his family was being attacked in Gaza.
He is measured, even scientific, in his responses - a reflection, perhaps, of his medical background.
But he is clinical when I ask him if he thinks his home was targeted.
"As the tanks approached my house, all of Israel knew. The media knew about it as it was happening.
"This is a crime. I want them to tell the truth. I want the death of my family members to open the eyes of people in Israel, that the Gaza attack was simply a massacre. This has been a blind war. The Israeli army has just eaten whatever it can as it moved through Gaza. But it has achieved nothing."
The doctor, who lost his wife to cancer, just a couple of months ago, owns a four-storey apartment block.
Most of his family live with him on the other floors. His youngest daughter, who had never left the Gaza Strip, was getting ready to fly to fly to Toronto, where Abu Al Aish was considering moving too.
Nearby residents in the area said they had left before the Israeli raids into northern Gaza. I asked him why he told his family to stay.
"I was determined for them to stay. Why should I leave? Where would I go? No place is safe in Gaza."
A close friend of Abu Al Aish, who didn't want to be identified, told Gulf News that he was a well-respected man in his community, a long-standing proponent of peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
"Politics? Don't talk to me about politics. This man was dedicated to medicine and helping people."
And after all that has happened, Abu Al Aish is still committed to working in Israel. "My office is full of people offering me support and comfort. Medicine is medicine, and dealing with health will never change. I have many friends at the hospital, many of them Israeli Jews, who are standing by my side and all I want now is to see my family healthy and hope that the deaths of the girls will not be futile, that they didn't die for nothing."
