Thirty-six hours after Israeli tanks backed out of his garden, 66-year-old Abed Rabbo Abu Daga still trembles with fear and rage. The man they were looking for - his third son, Issam (36) - is on the run.
The early morning interlude briefly put three members of the Abu Daga clan in hospital. It marked the first time since the 1993 Oslo Accords that the Israeli army has come across the border into this village in the Khan Younes governorate.
"It was 1.15 in the morning. They knocked on the door with a terrible racket," Mr Abu Daga says, sitting on a rococco-style sofa in a long robe and red-and -white keffiyeh. Until the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, his family's farm straddled what is now the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip.
They were left with the truncated part in Gaza. Family members emigrated to Algeria, Libya, Germany and the US, but those who remain live together in a relatively prosperous neighbourhood of vine-covered villas, amid fields and olive groves.
"They shouted, 'Open the door. It's the Israeli army'," Abed Rabbo continues. "I said, 'Wait, I'm going to get my shoes'. When I opened the door, they grabbed me by the collar and poked guns in my chest. They hit me and I said, 'I'm old and sick. Don't do that.'
They asked how many sons I have, and I said 'Adli, Barakat, Issam, Adnan and Hatem'. They said, 'We want Issam,' and I said, 'He isn't here'. They said, 'Yes he is!' and they forced their way into the house."
While 10 Israelis - several in civilian clothing - and a hooded Arab collaborator came into the house, at least 60 more waited in the garden. "They were everywhere - special forces wearing helmets, bullet-proof vests and camouflage face paint," says Lima Abu Daga, Abed Rabbo's niece and a medical doctor, who lives next door.
Mr Abu Daga says the Israelis threatened Issam's wife Amal if she did not tell them where her husband was. "She was crying. They brought two dogs into the house and ransacked it."
He shows me a wooden sofa arm that a soldier kicked off with his boot. "They took video cassettes, computer disks, personal papers. When they finished, they said, 'Bring Hatem'." The youngest son, Hatem (26) is a journalist with the Palestinian news agency WAFA. "They hand-cuffed him and beat him," the old farmer recounted. Hatem was taken away with his nose bleeding. The Israelis dumped him at dawn, at the Mahfouza crossing to the Gush Katif settlement. He was treated in hospital for severe bruises.
Next door, the Israelis also called on Mr Abu Daga's brother, Abdul Hay. "They told my father, 'Kneel on the ground and put your hands on your head',"
Abdul Hay's son Raja (33), an unemployed engineer, says. "He pointed to his hip and said, 'I had an operation here; I can't'. They smashed his hip with the butt of an M16 rifle and he fell down."
Hospital x-rays show Abdul Hay Abu Daga's hip bone is freshly cracked. He cannot walk until he undergoes a second operation.
When the Israelis left, two ambulances arrived for Abdul Hay and his wife Rukaya (52), a diabetic who lost consciousness when she saw her husband beaten.
Could the Palestinian Authority have protected them? "There is no authority anyway," Abed Rabbo Abu Daga answers scathingly. "If (Palestinian security forces) had run into the Israelis on their way here, the Israelis would have squished them."
While these scenes were taking place, another neighbour announced over the mosque's loudspeaker, "Come help. The Israelis are here." To silence him, the Israelis repeatedly fired heavy machine guns into the night air. The bullets left at least a dozen deep gouges on the facades of houses.
And what about Issam, the hunted man? "He's in the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine - that's why they want him," his father admits. Issam Abu Daga was a student activist while studying engineering in Algeria, and the Israelis arrested him on his return to the Gaza Strip in 1993. He spent three years at Nakab prison in Israel, then became an official in the Palestinian Authority on his release in 1995.
The Marxist DFLP staged the first purely military attack of the 14 month-old Intifada on August 25th when two guerrillas attacked an Israeli army post near Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip. They killed an Israeli army captain and a soldier before being killed themselves.
Following the DFLP's example, the Islamic extremist group Hamas subsequently attacked the settlements of Dougit and Ely Sinai, also in Gaza.
Israeli authorities apparently suspect Issam Abu Daga, a member of the DFLP's central committee, of involvement in the military attack on Israeli occupation troops. He received a tip-off months ago, and has changed his mobile telephone, car and sleeping place. Whether or not the Israelis catch him, his family feel they've been taken hostage.
Abassan el Kabira is one kilometre from the Israeli border. "This is the first time since 1993 that the Israelis have come into the village," Abed Rabbo Abu Daga says. "Until now, the tanks came in 100 metres or so to destroy crops or trees, but they didn't go into people's houses." His nephew Raja was surprised that the Israelis - who usually attack from an Apache helicopter or an F16 bomber - would take the risk of sending foot soldiers. "It shows they are more sure of themselves; they're very confident."
In the tortured history of 34 years of Israeli occupation, broken rules are seldom re-established. In Gaza, the Israelis first re-entered the strictly Palestinian "Zone A" on December 24th 2000, to raze Palestinian homes on the Netzarim Road, so they could build a bridge between two settlers' roads. But until now, most incursions were staged from the settlements - not from Israel proper.
Lima Abu Daga feels the family compound has been violated. "The Israelis can come into the house at any time ... we're no longer in the Palestinian territories," she said. "We're in Israeli territory; we're under occupation."