Ayman Athamna thinks that he lost at least least 15 members of his extended family, including his grandmother Fatima and five children aged between 1 and 11, when Israel launched an artillery strike against Beit Hanoun this morning.

Speaking to The Times in the northern Gaza town he told how the four-storey house where he lives with other families was hit numerous times by Israeli shells.

"I woke up around 5:30 and woke my wife to pray," the 37-year-old said. "She made a cup of tea, and my three-year-old daughter was playing with me.

"About five minutes later, we heard the first shell hit the house, high up in the building.

"The first shell hit near the alleyway. I picked up my phone and ran down the stairs which was full of dust from the impact.

"My brothers and all their families were still inside the house. I went out into the street my mother was running behind me. I saw my uncle come out and one of his son’s had been hit in the head and he was shouting some people have been injured upstairs.

"I called the ambulance and suddenly someone shouted they could hear another shell coming. ‘You can hear them.’

"I took shelter in my neighbours house. The second shell hit the corner of our building as I was with my neighbour Saker Adwan. I took shelter, he didn’t.

"I found half of his body on the ground – he was still alive. As I pulled the torso away into a side street I told him to say a prayer - ‘There is only one god and Mohammed is his prophet’.

"He started but only said ‘There is only one god’....and then he died. My neighbours started running towards us but after that the shells just kept landing. I think there were about seven of them.

"They came inside the house and all around the house. A lot of the children and adults were killed in the alleyway by the second shell after they ran out to escape the first.

"My mother was killed. My grandmother was killed. I saw the children Rozan, two, Mahmood, 11, Saad, Mohammed, 15, Maysa, one and Maram, four.

"My brothers and I were pulling out the bodies but we were panicked by the shells and ran out of the area into the citrus groves.

"Then the ambulances came into the alleyway, and started to pick up the bits of bodies. All this happened in 15 minutes."

After the attack large pools of blood stained the alleyway and football-sized holes could be seen in the building.

The house, which is the middle of Beit Hanoun, has streets and alleyways on the front and side, and to the rear, several acres of green houses and an orchid – the type of terrain from where militants often fire rocket attacks.

It is a large residential family home, and a building in which more than 100 people live.

Inside the home there are now abandoned baby buggies, pro-Fatah election posters, pictures of Yassir Arafat, World Cup logos in the children’s bedrooms, teddy bears and dolls.

And in the surrounding building, stranded kid goats stand over their decapitated mothers, who were killed by the shrapnel.

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