My nephew Mu’in [10], the sole survivor from his family, cried hysterically when he said goodbye to his mother and siblings. He was shocked and couldn’t believe they were all gone and he was left alone. Mu’in is broken. He keeps asking about his mother and his siblings. He tells me, “My father left us. Then my mother and brothers left me. What did I stay alive for?” I have no words to comfort him.

When I woke up, I found myself buried in a pile of debris and rubble. Right before that, while I was asleep, I dreamt that I was walking and a missile fell on me. In the dream, my father, my wife, my son, my sister, and a mass of people were walking ahead of me. The sky wasn’t like the sky we know. Two people dressed in white stopped me and said, “You’re not going with them.” I stopped, and my wife and son kept walking. A few meters ahead of me, they turned and waved goodbye

When I managed to get out of the kitchen tent, I started screaming and looking for my sons. I saw bodies on the ground, and the schoolyard was covered in blood. I found [my son] Nazir safe and sound, but feared that [my eldest] ‘Abd a-Rahman had been killed because he was in the area that was bombed. […] I ran frantically to the road, managed to catch the ambulance evacuating him, and went with him to [the hospital]. There, the doctors decided to amputate ‘Abd a-Rahman’s left leg below the knee […].

My father and my brother Zeid, 18, were in a tent in the schoolyard waiting for lunch when the Israeli military suddenly bombed the school [...] We all rushed down to the yard and frantically searched for my father and Zeid among the dismembered bodies and the wounded [...] I found the body of Zeid, who had been wounded in the abdomen. When I saw him, I went hysterical and began screaming. I wandered around the yard barefoot, even though the ground was scorching from the bombing [...]. I saw my uncles, who were also displaced at the school, lifting my father, wrapped in a blanket, and I fainted.

I took my baby, grabbed my three other children, and we ran toward the school gate with the other IDPs. We all fled for our lives. The scene that day was apocalyptic. The school was a site of ruin, wreckage, stones, glass everywhere. On the way out, we stepped on bodies, some burned, and body parts, and on bleeding wounded whose limbs had been severed. There was blood and bodies everywhere.

On Thursday, 16 November 2023, we made dinner and sat down to eat. My son Mu’in was sleeping in the next room. When we finished eating, I went into the room where Mu’in was sleeping, along with my husband, our son ‘Imad, and my husband’s sister Ilham, 33. We didn’t hear any planes or bombs, but suddenly, the house came crashing down on us. [...] The next day, I was told ‘Imad had been killed. I sat next to Mu’in for four days while he was in intensive care. [...] I lost Mu’in on 20 November 2023. (Jihan Swelem-'Aweidah talked to B'Tselem in August 2024 about losing her little boys in a bombing. On 10 October, she was killed in another bombing).

I grabbed my daughter’s hand, lifted her up, and begged the military not to run us over too, but the tank hit us, and we fell to the ground. I lifted my head and hand, and I was sure I was dying. I couldn’t hear Muhammad, but I saw Ahmad, his back covered in blood, and my husband, who was bleeding from every part of his body except his face. His left hand was severed. He said to me: ‘Raja’, my love, forgive me.’ I answered: ‘I forgive you, ya Akram.’

the sky was completely covered in clouds, dust and dirt. People started running in all directions. [...] We started rescuing injured people, as many as we could. Some lost hands, others legs. There were at least 100 of them. Some of the people we rescued died in our hands. When we entered the tents that were still standing, we saw they were full of bodies, mostly of women and children.

The dog pounced on Muhammad and bit him in the chest. Muhammad was very frightened and started screaming at the dog: “Get away! Get off me! Get away!” The dog didn’t back off. It grabbed Muhammad’s left arm below the shoulder [...] Muhammad was already bleeding heavily from his arm. It was a terrible sight and we couldn’t do anything about it. We tried to shout to the soldiers that we were civilians, that they should get the dog away from Muhammad, that Muhammad had a disability, but they paid no attention to us.

It was as if the Angel of Death himself was flying the drone to make sure the quota of victims. It felt like a zombie movie. I saw severed arms next to me, stumbled over a severed leg, and I think I even saw the charred body of a man with half a face, meaning his head was split in two so he had one eye, one ear, half a nose and half a mouth left. But I’m not sure any more what I really saw in those moments of terror [...] Death was enveloping everything.

It was like Judgment Day: massive blasts, balls of fire and hell raining down on us, stones, trees and sand flying everywhere. The sound of the quadcopters shooting mixed with the screaming in the camp. There were dismembered bodies and bits of flesh everywhere, bodies of children, women, and men. I fled with my brothers and everyone around me, scared to death. I ran with my hands over my head, as if that would protect me if another missile landed [...]

The whole way, they hit us hard with their guns, stomped all over our bodies and swore at us. They also used tasers to give us electric shocks all over our bodies. We got to a detention facility. I didn’t know where it was or what the place was called. When they took us off the truck, they dropped me face down on the ground. My jaw got injured and felt like it was broken, and some of my teeth fell out.

They put cigarettes out in my mouth and on my body. They put clamps on my testicles that were attached to something heavy. It went on like that for a whole day. My testicles swelled up and my left ear bled. I was asked about Hamas leaders and people I didn’t know and hadn’t met. They asked me where I was on 7 October, and I said I was at home and had only gone out to get food for my wife. They beat me. Then they put me back in the freezing room with the loud disco music, and again left me there, naked, for two days.

We were handcuffed and blindfolded, and then, they put us in a big pit and left us there in the heat for about six hours. At first, we thought they were going to dump the sand on us and bury us alive, but they took us out of there and took us to a detention facility that I don’t know the name of. The trip there took about four hours, and the soldiers beat, humiliated and swore at us the whole way.

The interrogator repeatedly said to me “You’re Hamas,” “You’re a Hamas commander in the northern Gaza Strip,” and “We have information that you’re a Hamas supporter.” This time the interrogation included the “shabach” position: I was tied up while standing on tiptoes, with my arms stretched up and back. They left me in that position for two hours.

I filmed people holding bleeding children in their arms, a guy carrying half the body of another guy, women running madly on the street with their heads uncovered, people falling on the ground because of the shooting and mayhem. I fell down, too, and two guys and a woman fell next to me. I saw children on the street without their families, and a child alone who was killed.

The pediatric ward was full of patients – kids with cancer, hepatitis and many other illnesses. The hallways were crowded with sick and wounded people and the people staying with them. I have no words to describe what went on there. The whole time Nabil was treated in the hospitals in the Gaza Strip, he never got chemotherapy.

A doctor from al-’Awda Hospital called and told us the army had ordered all doctors over the age of 40 to go out to the hospital yard in their underwear. He said that Uncle ‘Adnan went down and was arrested. [...] All we knew was that Uncle ‘Adnan was in Ofer Prison and was being held under the Unlawful Combatants Law. Then, someone who was released from prison told us my uncle was not in the barracks [a nickname for the Sde Teiman facility] but in another detention facility. Then, before it was announced on the news, my father found out Uncle ‘Adnan had died in prison.

[My sister] Maryam walked out waving a white flag. She managed to take a few steps and then stopped in the middle of the street, I don’t know what she saw, and ran towards me. Just then, a sniper shot her in the back. The bullet came out through her stomach and she fell down. She just looked at us, completely still, not saying a word. I said, “Maryam, come, try to drag yourself so we can get you inside.” She couldn’t move. Then they shot her again, four more bullets. She died right in front of us.

They forced us to kneel in a prostration position, with our hands still cuffed and our eyes covered. We stayed like that for about two hours, and if a detainee dared move, even a bit, he was beaten. One of the soldiers asked me what I did for a living, and when I told him I was a surgeon in the Indonesian Hospital, he attacked me and kicked me really hard.

One day, during the siege on the hospital, my uncle Amir and his children were sitting next to us. His son Karim, 3, was sitting on his lap when suddenly a bullet hit him in the head. He started bleeding, but there was no medical staff there. His mother held him. We bandaged his head with gauze, and then, even though it was dangerous outside, my uncle took him to the UNRWA al-Fakhura clinic. They told him Karim’s condition was very serious and he had to take him to al-Ma’amadani Hospital in Gaza. He didn’t manage to get him there, and at 6:00 P.M., Karim died.

I was praying in the shack when a massive explosion shook everything. The shack collapsed, and I felt something hit my back. Salma’s leg was badly injured, and Ahmad was buried under the rubble. Neighbors rushed to pull us out

My daughter Afnan said: “Father. Where’s father? He didn’t wake up!” I shone a flashlight on my husband and saw he’d been hit in the head by shrapnel and was dying. My daughter Shaimaa was also hit in the head, and was semi-conscious. My sister-in-law Iman, 45, was screaming, “My leg! My leg!” When I tried to help her, another tank shell was fired at us and killed my three daughters, Afnan, Duha and Shaimaa, my son Mahmoud, and my nephew, whose name was also Mahmoud, 19.

On 16 November 2023, at around 2:00 A.M., I woke up to the sound of my husband shouting and calling for me. I heard him say that the station had been bombed. I was shocked because I hadn’t heard the explosion. All I could see around me was fire and dust. I could hear voices but couldn’t see anyone. I called out my children’s names. My husband started pulling our son Muhammad out to rescue him. I called for Malak. Then ambulances arrived. I couldn’t walk, so they carried me to an ambulance. While I was in the ambulance, the paramedics told me that my children were fine except for Malak. They told me she had been killed. I cried and screamed.