Feb. 21--DOHA, Qatar -- To launch Al Jazeera's new weekly show, Focus On Gaza, correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin visited the village of Khuza'a where residents and human rights experts believe a possible war crime took place during Israel's offensive on the Gaza Strip.

A photograph of her recent pilgrimage to Mecca is now all that remains of Rawhiyya al Najar.

The mother was a Gaza native who had lived her entire life through conflict before it was to end on January 13, aged 37, by what was estimated to be a single shot to the head.

Testimony from eyewitnesses, friends, neighbours and human rights experts about the incident tell the story of how a woman carrying a baby and white flag was shot in broad daylight by an Israeli soldier.

Nasser al Najar, Rawhiyya's husband, still has the bloodstained white flag he says his wife was carrying when she was killed.

In 1949, the newly formed state of Israel, many of whose citizens had been victims of Nazi war crimes, signed the Geneva Convention on the protection of civilians in time of war.

Among the conditions of the convention Article three states: "Persons taking no active part in the hostilities ... shall in all circumstances be treated humanely."

Article 32 states: "Civilian hospitals organised to give care to the wounded and sick ... may in no circumstances be the object of attack."

But during Israel's recent war on Gaza there is evidence to suggest that these conditions were frequently ignored and that the Israeli military disregarded the laws of war.

Villagers in Khuza'a are accustomed to living under the guns that man the nearby Israeli watchtowers, but Nasser says there are normally no Palestinian resistance fighters in the area and consequently he felt the village would be spared an Israeli raid.

However, on January 12, the Israelis began an intense shelling of the area and deployed white phosphorous, a move that was considered a precursor to a ground-based attack.

White flag hope

Bombs were falling and a number of houses in the area were on fire.

Nasser, along with many others, decided to leave the area, fearing the men in the village would be taken prisoner by the Israelis. He could not persuade his wife to join him.

"She said ... If they were going to kill her, then she would rather die in her own house," he says.

"She thought that maybe if we lifted white flags they might have some mercy on us and not kill us.

"She said the white flag represents peace so they won't harm us ... But they didn't respect the white flag."

Rawhiyya's daughter, Hiba, stayed with her mother but the white phosphorous caused them to have coughing fits and hampered their efforts to put out the fires.