A.H.

A 30-year-old mother of four from Deir al-Balah described losing of most of her family members in an airstrike and surviving the massacre at the IDP shelter in a-Sayedah Khadijah School in July 2024:

I’m married and have four children, ages eight, six, four, and a three-month-old baby. I’m from Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. At the beginning of the war, I was two months pregnant. There were constant bombings around us, and I was terrified for myself, my husband, my children, my parents, and the entire family.

On 20 October 2023, the Israeli military threatened to bomb our block. We all left the house and spent the night on the street. In the end, the block wasn’t bombed, but I was afraid to go home. That same night, Israeli planes bombed my parents’ house, killing them. I didn’t know until the next morning, because my husband was afraid to tell me. In the morning, my mother-in-law told me that the military had bombed farmland near my parents’ home and that there were casualties. She went with me to Shuhadaa al-Aqsa Hospital, where I saw my uncles on both sides of the family, and to my dismay, they began consoling me for the death of my parents.

I screamed, especially when I realized that 11 members of my family had been killed: my father, 58, my mother, 52, my brother, 29, his wife, 25, who was six months pregnant, and their two children, ages five and four. Four more of my siblings, ages 20, 18, 17, and 14, were also killed, as well as my six-year-old niece. I screamed and cried that morning, and to this day, I cannot grasp that they were all killed, just like that, for no reason. Out of my family, only two sisters and three brothers are left.

At the end of 2023, an airstrike hit near our house, and we had to leave. We became IDPs at the a-Sayedah Khadijah School, which served as both an IDP shelter and a field hospital. Life there was extremely difficult. There is no way to maintain hygiene in IDP camps, as there isn’t enough water or cleaning supplies, and when they are available, the prices are extortionate. Several families share a single classroom. We survived on canned food and aid rations distributed to the IDPs at the school.

Two of my children, the eight-year-old and the four-year-old, got Hepatitis A. There was no treatment to offer them. We were just told to give them sweet foods, but it was very difficult to get such foods. The whole city is filthy, infested with insects. Sewage flows in the streets, drinking water and food are contaminated. My children have developed allergies and skin problems, and I’m trying to get ointments for them.

I spent my entire pregnancy away from my home. I had my son in early May, at Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat Refugee Camp, and instead of returning home as I had dreamed, I returned with my baby to Khadijah School.

On Saturday, 27 July 2024, I was washing clothes at the school. My six-year-old son asked if he could go buy a cold drink, but I refused because I was afraid to let him walk alone. A little after 11:00 A.M., I heard the sound of heavy bombing. Stones, building debris, and glass flew everywhere, and I heard women and children screaming. I grabbed my son’s hand and ran to the classroom where my other children were. Thank God, they were unharmed. A woman was holding my baby. A stone hit her on the shoulder, and my baby was saved thanks to her and to God’s mercy.

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.

We escaped and ran through the streets until we reached my aunt’s house, my father’s sister. We arrived terrified and crying. I couldn’t believe I had managed to get my children out of that massacre alive. I have no words to describe what we went through that day. Since then, my children haven’t been able to sleep well. They cry and scream all the time. They replay what they went through, telling me, “We stepped on body parts, on bodies, and on blood!” My children are emotionally scarred from the bombings, from being displaced again and again, from the massacre they witnessed. My baby’s body trembles with fear every time there is a bombing or even a loud noise. My other children panic at every sound or loud voice too.

We still haven’t found a place to live. My husband is in a tent with his family, and I’m staying with the children in relatives’ homes, moving every week or ten days. There is no safe place to go. All the IDP camps are full beyond capacity. There’s no space left to pitch a tent. I wander from house to house. I have almost no family left. So many of my relatives were killed. I live a rootless life. I have no stable place to stay. There is no security and no life in Gaza. We are surrounded by death.

I cannot bear all that has happened to me. I live in a nightmare. I just want the war to end so we can live without fear. Since the war began, there has been no electricity, no water, no security. Disease spreads everywhere. There is no money to buy necessities. Prices are sky-high. Meat, vegetables, and fruit are sold at astronomical prices. I can’t get milk or diapers for my baby. I am broken inside. I have no energy left. All I feel is anxiety, fear, and suffocating pressure in my chest, from worrying about my husband and children. I am terrified of losing one of them. I’ve lost the dearest people to me, my parents and my brothers and sisters. I only hope for the day the war ends and pray that I don’t lose anyone else I love.

* Testimony given to B’Tselem field researcher Olfat al-Kurd on 15 August 2024