In the days since a wild-haired Huda Ghalia was filmed howling with anguish amid a family picnic blown apart by shellfire, she has become an instant symbol of suffering across the Arab world.

On satellite channels and Palestinian television, the images of the 11-year-old Gaza schoolgirl crying “My father, oh my father” are played again and again, the soundtrack laid over news footage from Gaza and the West Bank.

Lying dead or dying are her father, Ali, 45, and sisters Aliya, 25, Sabreen, 4, Hanadi, 14 months, and Ehan, 18. Also killed were her father’s second wife, Raisa, 35, and Huda’s half-brother Haitham, aged 5 months. Huda, standing in shock as their broken bodies are carried away, suddenly breaks down and screams “Oh world”, before throwing herself next to her father’s open-eyed body and shouting at the cameraman who has arrived: “Film him, film him.”

Israel suspended all artillery fire into Gaza pending an investigation and expressed regret for civilian deaths, but stopped short of admitting responsibility until the Israel Defence Forces complete their inquiry.

Ehud Olmert, the Prime Minister, apologised for the “tragic event” and said that Israel would make every effort to ensure that it did not happen again.

Israeli officials have hinted that the blast could have been a misfired Palestinian rocket. However, no Palestinian harbours the slightest doubt that it was Israeli artillery.

Clutching a doll almost as large as her — a gift from wellwishers — Huda now sits dazed in an uncle’s house, beside the family mourning tent in Beit Lahiya, visited by a stream of television crews, journalists, aid workers and family friends.

She has not yet seen the television pictures. “We were sitting and all of a sudden the shells just started falling on our heads,” she said. Earlier shells had prompted the family to pack up and call for a taxi. “First they hit far away so we got ready to leave, and we were just sitting.”

What she cannot bring herself to describe is captured on the film of a Palestinian cameraman. Bodies, limbs and groaning, wounded people lie amid pushchairs, beach furniture and a deck of playing cards on a sand dune.Palestinian politicians have seized upon the tragedy. Huda was brought to the office of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President. Ismail Haniya, his Hamas rival, visited the family home. Both spoke of symbolically adopting her.

At the weekend Huda attended a hastily convened press conference flanked by Palestinian officials who made lengthy speeches. Yesterday international aid workers visited to drop off toys, as the mourning tent’s loudspeaker outside chanted “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest).

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