Olfat al-Kurd

Olfat al-Kurd, a 42-year-old mother of four and field researcher with B’Tselem, lived until the war in the neighborhood of a-Shuja’iya in Gaza City. On 7 October 2023, she and her family fled their home and moved from friends to relatives in search of shelter. On 19 October, they had to move to a temporary refugee camp along with dozens of other families in Deir al-Balah. The tents are made of blankets and will not withstand rain.

Al-Kurd gave testimonies to B’Tselem on 12 and 15 October:  

I live with my husband, Muhammad a-Sheikh Khalil (47), and our four children, Haya (19), Yasser (18), Zeinah (16) and Yusef (14), in the a-Shuja’iya neighborhood in Gaza City. 

On Saturday, 7 October 2023, I prayed the morning prayer around 6:30 A.M. and then woke the children to get ready for school. I started my exercises, which I do every morning, and then I heard a loud explosion. We’re used to hearing explosions here, so I didn't pay too much attention to it, but then there were more explosions and they got louder and louder. It was getting very scary. I looked through the window and saw that all the neighbors, women, children and elderly people, had come out of their homes. Everyone was running along the road in a panic, white as a sheet with fear. I saw men running with small children in their arms, and mothers crying and looking for their children. It was a terrifying sight. 

Then my husband came running into the room and asked us to get ready to leave quickly. We didn't know what was going on and only understood there was a war. My sons and daughters grabbed their bags. They were shaking with fear and ran out to the street without any of us knowing what was happening. 
We got into a taxi that took us to my sister Ghadah's house, which is close to the Gaza seaport. Everyone was fleeing west of Gaza City. I saw thousands of frightened women, children and men running along the street like it was Judgment Day. I stopped the taxi to buy bread and water, but the stores were being swarmed so I couldn’t get any. 

We kept driving until we got to my sister’s house. She also didn't really understand what was going on. We started checking the news sites on our phones, and then we found out what happened in the Israeli settlements around Gaza. I was shocked to my core, and at the same time, I realized the Israeli response would be very harsh. I talked to the children and explained to them that very difficult things were going to happen. I asked them to stay inside and not hang around outside or scatter. The kids were so scared they couldn’t eat, and only drank some water. I tried to cheer them up a bit, but they were very pale and scared and kept running to the bathroom out of fear. 

Later that day, my husband went to the market and bought some groceries to stock up for the war. We heard fighter planes bombing different parts of Gaza. The children became withdrawn. Whenever there were explosions nearby, they covered their ears with their hands. 

I stayed on the phone with my father and siblings all day. They live in the northern Gaza Strip and also deserted their homes. My brothers' wives went to their families' homes in Jabalya Refugee Camp, and my father and brothers went to my sister's house.

Yesterday, 10 October 2023, around 12:30 P.M., we had to evacuate    my sister's house. We moved to my brother-in-law's, east of Gaza City. There were a lot of people in the house and it was very crowded. There wasn’t enough food and water, and the power was out. 

My husband and I decided to go to a-Shifaa Hospital and wait there because it’s considered a safe place, but when we got there, the situation was horrific. There were thousands of families there, women, children and elderly people. We heard shouting and crying and bombing. Ambulances were constantly bringing in dead and injured people. We saw people who lost limbs, children wandering around crying and looking for their mothers, and people who were hungry and sick. 

We looked for a free spot to hole up in, and I finally found a narrow area at the end of a passageway in the hospital, near a toilet, and the whole family sat down there. I kept trying to lift the children's spirits and joke around with them, but I couldn't. They were shaking with fear the whole time. Every now and then, my husband went and got us a little something to eat, like snacks or tinned food. The fighter planes kept circling above us and dropping bombs. At the hospital, there were hundreds of pale and scared children who were crying all the time, and women in mourning who were screaming and wailing. Some had lost their children, others their husbands. Some lost their entire family. 
The internet was down, which only made it worse. We were very worried about relatives and didn't know what was happening to them. We were cut off from the world and had no idea what was happening outside. Every time injured and dead people were brought to the hospital, we were very afraid we’d recognize friends or relatives among them. 

Yesterday, around 10:00 P.M., a relative called and told me the Israeli army had bombed my aunt Fatimah's house and that members of our family, including children, were killed there. I still haven’t been able to find out exactly who was killed. That’s been our situation since Saturday. We still hear bombings and rockets and see injured and dead people all the time. The smell of blood is everywhere.    

On 15 October 2023, Olfat added: 

My family and I stayed at a-Shifaa Hospital for three days. That whole time, we couldn’t sleep at all, and just saw terrifying sights of wounded people covered in blood, and dead people, and heard mothers screaming and ambulance sirens that didn’t stop for a second. Hundreds of people, women, children and elderly people were sleeping on the hospital’s premises, including in the stairwell. Hundreds of young men slept in the outdoor areas, on the ground, with nothing to cover them. Some people slept sitting up because there was no place to lie down. There was not enough water or food. There were hundreds of frightened children who cried and screamed all the time. My children were pale with fear and suffering from lack of sleep. They lost their appetite and barely ate a few bites. I felt like I was falling apart, and I kept it together just for them. 
On Thursday, 12 October 2023, the Israeli forces issued an order to evacuate a-Shifaa Hospital. Everyone started running away quickly in a panic, fearing the hospital would be bombed. Children were screaming in fear, and elderly people who had trouble moving cried. 

Luckily, a friend of the family picked me and my family up, and we crowded in the car with his six family members. We drove away, leaving behind hundreds of people, including dead and injured people. On the way, we saw shocking scenes. Thousands of people who had been displaced from their homes, women, children, old people, young people. The houses, towers, buildings and schools were reduced to rubble. The smell of death and blood was everywhere. It was hard to advance because the roads were destroyed. The children and I recited Quran verses and felt that we were going to be bombed at any moment, that these were our final moments. 

It took us about half an hour to get to the center of the Strip, but it felt like forever. We went to the home of the sister of our friend with whom we escaped, in Deir al-Balah. Other people were already staying there, and with us, the number came up to 20 people. We had no water or power. Luckily, they got water that day. My children had quick showers after a few days without being able to bathe. We washed the clothes by hand, baked pita bread on firewood we’d brought, and conserved as much water as possible, because we knew it would get cut off. We filled up as many dishes and bottles as we could with water, and the bathtub too. 

We used a neighbor's solar device to charge our phones and get in touch with relatives who’d also left their homes and whose whereabouts we didn't know. Reception was terrible, but I was able to make sure that my father and siblings were still alive. Thousands of refugees from Gaza arrived in the area. I saw thousands sleeping in the streets and under trees. Only a few hundred were lucky and found shelter in institutions, universities, schools and UNRWA offices, but they didn’t have water, food or power either. Food and water in the area started to run out. 

My kids were on the brink of a breakdown, especially Haya (19), who lost her appetite, became withdrawn and lost weight. I kept trying to coax her to eat, and it occasionally helped, but then she couldn’t eat again. We’re all just praying to go back to our homes and waiting to hear if there’s a solution on the horizon. We’re living a nightmare, anxious for family members and friends we haven't heard from, without power and with very little food and water. 

I’ve already lost more than 16 relatives in this war - uncles and cousins.  I’m in shock and can’t even cry. I feel emotionally disconnected. I try to put on a brave front for the family, but it’s very difficult. We have no idea how this will end and what will happen to us. These could be our final days.
 

* Testimony given to B'Tselem Field Researcher Manal al-Ja’bari on 12 October 2023 and updated on 15 October 2023.