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were then able to make their way through the rubble and through the neighbour’sback yard until they reached Muhammad Tawfiq Qdeih’s house on a parallel street(point 7 on the map).8. Exodus from Khuza’a, 24 July 2014After being forced out of the basement, this group made a second attempt to leavethe town en masse. This time they were allowed to proceed, via a different routeleading from Khuza’a to Abasan Al Kabir (the blue line on the map marks this route).According to Dr. Qdeih, as they came out onto the street they saw the body of hiscousin, Rami Qdeih, lying on the ground but could not stop to care for the body 13 . Asthey reached the end of the street, they saw a large crowd coming towards themfrom the adjacent neighbourhood of Abu Reda (the green line on the map marksthe route of this group). The two groups merged and they continued trying to reachAbasan Al Kabir. According to Dr. Qdeih, ‘all of Khuza’a’ was covered by a white fogcloud due to the large amounts of teargas deployed in the area. After about one hourof walking, tanks appeared and pointed their guns at them. He said:We were about 5-10 meters in front of soldiers with our hands raised. Mydaughter was waving a white shirt and all were crying “We are civilians”. Therewere about 500 soldiers with bulldozers and 10 tanks every 10 meters with gunspointed directly towards us. We were told to sit down where we were. The soldiersmade a corridor between the tanks and told us to walk slowly down the corridor.While this large group walked down the corridor, we heard a large explosion. Amotorcycle was targeted by a tank, killing those on the motorcycle and 3 othersat the back of our group. We were then able to leave the town. Over the final day,we, people from 1 day old to 100 years old, walked about 3 kilometers.According to Dr. Qdeih, during the march, a pregnant woman with a baby was notable to walk any further, so she gave her child to others to take to safety. Anotherwoman began having contractions while walking the long distance. She deliveredher child at the hospital.According to Samia Abu Daka, she required help from her relatives to complete the3-km walk. She described the fields on both sides of the road as full of holes, withbig mountains of dirt and soil behind which many tanks were hidden. She said theytook a narrow path between the fields and some chicken farms to avoid the tanks,because they were terrified of a new attack.The group finally arrived at a place behind a military checkpoint, where ambulances,private cars, minibuses and even tok-toks (3-wheel motors-Ed.) were waiting forthem (point 9 on the map). According to Samia Abu Daka, they knew about thismeeting point because some of the people in the group had been in touch with theirfamilies in Abasan by phone and had heard that ambulances were waiting.13See also Ramadan Qdeih’s testimony at Para 10 below, regarding seeing this body at this location.87