Asmahan Mahmoud a-Taluli

A 51-year-old widowed mother of nine from Jabalya R.C., Asmahan spoke about losing three family members, her missing son and the difficult conditions in the camp

I lost my husband, Nafez a-Taluli, 59, and my daughter, Maryam, 25, in the war. My son Nimer, 26, a married father of three, is missing. I don’t know what happened to him, and I’ve also lost touch with his wife and children. My husband’s second wife, Suhad, was also killed. I live with relatives in Gaza City now with my other children: Ahlam, 33, Muhammad, 30, Ahmad, 28, Rim, 22, ‘Aishah, 20, Menatallah, 16, and Mahmoud, 13.

Until the war, I lived with my husband and our nine children in the Tel a-Za’tar neighborhood in Jabalya Refugee Camp. But after October 7, the camp became a war zone. There were bombings and bodies everywhere. Families were bombed inside their homes, children, old people and women. UNRWA schools that were turned into IDP camps were also bombed. The Israeli army ordered us to move to places that were supposed to be safe and then bombed them. Here, in the northern Gaza Strip, nowhere is safe anymore.

At the beginning of the war, my children and I relocated to the Abu Zeitun school in the eastern part of the camp, together with my husband’s second wife, Suhad, and her children: Junein, 21, Amneh 20, Fidaa 17, Yusef, 16, and Rimas, 12. My husband, who is a leg amputee and suffers from diabetes and cirrhosis, decided to stay at home because he wouldn’t have been able to cope with the overcrowding at the school, and without a handicapped-accessible bathroom. But he insisted we go, because he thought we’d still be safer at the school. I didn’t want to go south because nowhere is safe there, either.

On 5 December 2023, I went home with Suhad and her daughters, to visit my husband and bake bread. We were worried about my husband, so even when some guys on the street told us there was a sniper in the area and we shouldn’t go any further, we decided to keep going to the house.

We managed to get there, visited my husband, baked pita bread and left again. We encountered some shooting in one of the streets. Shrapnel flew over our heads. I found cover and told Suhad to stay with me, but her daughters had already crossed the street and she wanted to go over to them. She advanced, and suddenly I saw her fall face down. The shooting continued, so I couldn’t reach her. Her daughter dragged her, and then some guys who were around there came and tried to give her first aid. I took a detour to get to her, but by the time I did, she had already been taken to al-Yaman al-Saeed Hospital in Jabalya R.C.

I went to the hospital. When I got there, she was in bad shape. They transferred her from there to the UNRWA clinic, but she didn’t make it alive. We buried her near the clinic, at the Jabalya police station. We couldn’t bury her in the cemetery because the situation there is dangerous.

I went back to the school with her daughters and we stayed there. The situation at the school was very tough. There was hunger, and the Red Crescent was barely providing services anymore.

On 15 December 2023, the army ordered all residents of Tel a-Za’tar to evacuate. My husband was home alone there. He couldn’t get to Salah a-Din Road to go south as the army had ordered, so he decided to join us at the school. He headed in our direction. My children and I went to look for him, but we couldn’t find him. The next day, we went out to look for him again. Sadly, we found his body on the ground, with the wheelchair on top of him. It was a very difficult sight. That’s how I lost my husband, too. We buried him near the school where we were sheltering.

After my husband was killed, Suhad’s children decided to go south. Now they’re alone in Deir al-Balah, after losing both of their parents. I’m in touch with her daughters. They cry all the time. The children and I stayed at the school.

When the army withdrew from the Tel a-Za’tar area in the camp, I went to check on my house. The whole camp has turned into a ghost town. I saw neighbors’ bodies lying in the street, barely recognizable. All the streets were littered with bodies, and there were more bodies buried under the rubble and no equipment to get them out.

The situation in the north of the Gaza Strip kept getting worse. The Red Cross isn’t here anymore, and the wounded get no treatment. We’ve had a really hard time getting flour and other supplies because of the blockade. There was simply nothing to eat. My son Nimer, who was with us along with his wife and three children, Julia, Juri and Elias, would go out every now and then and try to get us food, but he could barely find anything.

At the beginning of March, Nimer went with three other guys to a-Nabulsi Square in the west of Gaza City to bring us flour and other food products from an aid convoy that was supposed to arrive there. When they arrived at the square, there was shooting there. He’s been missing ever since. I’ve only managed to find one of the guys who was with him. He was injured in the leg, and the doctors had to amputate it. He was also arrested by Israel and has since been released. He’s in bad shape emotionally and can’t tell me what happened to Nimer.

The Red Cross also can’t tell me if Nimer is alive or if he was killed there. I haven’t been able to get any reliable information about what happened to him and until I get proof, I won’t believe anything. I’m trying to muster the strength to bear it, but it’s very difficult.

I lost so much in this war, my husband, Suhad, Nimer, whose fate I don’t know. But somehow, I managed to keep it together – until I lost my daughter Maryam, too.

It was on 15 May 2024, in the IDP camp at the school. Tanks and snipers surrounded the school and there was shooting at the entrance. We saw a young man get injured there. His father asked us to help him, and Maryam wanted to go to him. I asked her not to go; I said it was too dangerous. But she insisted and started advancing towards the guy, and then the soldiers shot her and she fell. Her sister Rim and I called her, but she didn’t answer us, just looked at us, on the brink of death. We couldn’t get close to her, because there was still shooting, and she just died there.

That day, the army ordered us to leave the school. I took Maryam’s body. I wanted to bury her behind the school, next to her father, but the soldiers wouldn’t let me bury her. They ordered us to go west and leave the body, saying they would bury it. We had to leave her there and uproot ourselves again. I left her in tears. She was left there on the street, and I don’t know if they buried her or let her fall prey to dogs. After we left, the soldiers burned the school.

We couldn’t take anything with us. We left just like that. Now we’re staying at a relative’s house in western Gaza City. Nimer’s wife and children went to an IDP camp near Kamal ‘Odwan Hospital, and after that, I lost touch with them, and I don’t know where they are and if they’re okay. I can’t take another loss.

Many IDPs had nowhere to go, and they’ve been wandering the streets. I can’t wait for the army to withdraw from the camp so I can go back there. I’m hoping I’ll find her body and be able to bury her.

I can’t sleep at night. I keep thinking about Maryam, and the look in her eyes after she fell. I wonder what she wanted to say to me and her sister when we were standing in front of her, unable to do anything. We couldn’t get to her, to try to save her.

* Testimony given by phone to B’Tselem field researcher Olfat al-Kurd on 19 May 2024

** Read testimonies of Asmahan's daughter, journalist and photographer Ahlam a-Taluli, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on 13 Jan. 2025.