Safinaz a-Loh

A 33-year-old journalist from Nuseirat Refugee Camp, Safinaz described Israel’s attack on the camp during the operation to free four hostages on 8 June 2024:

I’m a freelance journalist and do live reports for Al Jazeera. I used to live on a-Da’wah Street in the Salah a-Din area in a-Nuseirat Refugee Camp. In December, we moved to the southern Gaza Strip after the military ordered us to leave. In January, after the military withdrew from the population centers in central Gaza, we discovered that our home was partially destroyed. Even so, after many months of living in tents, in early May I went back to live at home with my sister Shahinaz, my brother Ahmad and his wife Saedah, and we did some light repairs.

Yesterday morning, 8 June 2024, I went with Shahinaz to a dental clinic at the entrance to al-Bureij Refugee Camp, on Salah a-Din Street. Around 11:45 A.M., heavy gunfire suddenly broke out along with artillery and tank shelling. We heard people shouting on the street. The bombing grew stronger and we heard tanks. Shahinaz and I left the clinic and went out to the street.

I put on my vest, which says PRESS, and told Shahinaz, "I'm staying here, you go home," but she insisted on staying with me. Tanks were blocking the northern and southern entrances to the camp. We were stuck in the middle.

The tanks were shelling and there was another kind of heavy shooting. It was so massive that people were crawling on the ground to find cover. It was horrific. I’ve never seen anything like it. Wounded people were running along the street and women were holding wounded children in their arms. Bullets landed near my feet. I have a platinum implant in my leg because of an accident and I can't walk fast. Still, we made it to the entrance to a-Nuseirat R.C. Drones were firing directly at us and I finally talked my sister into going home.

I stayed there alone and started filming what was happening. There were tanks right in front of me, I don't remember how many. I saw drones everywhere, from the beginning of al-Bureij R.C. to Salah a-Din Street. There were snipers everywhere, on all the tall buildings.

I thought about my brother Ahmad and his wife, who were at home, and tried to call them but communications were down. I worried that maybe tanks had reached the house and they were surrounded. In the first invasion, the military took over our building because it has five stories, which is a relatively tall for the camp.

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.

I managed to get to the Palestine Bank in a-Nuseirat R.C. and stopped there to film. A drone fired while I was filming a tank driving into the camp. I was so scared that I managed to walk fast to get away.

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At that point, I saw masses of people on the streets who didn't know where to go to escape the bombings. They started running towards a-Zawaydah and Deir al-Balah. Lots of men, women and children. The fighter jets were bombing like crazy. There were wounded and dead people everywhere, and no ambulances to take them to hospitals.

I heard someone on the street saying that there were special Israeli forces in the camp. I met the brother of my sister-in-law Saedah, and asked about her and about my brother Ahmad. He told me that Ahmad was hit by a tank shell outside the house and Saedah was shot at but wasn’t injured.

Just then, a drone bombed the spot where I was standing. A child and a young man were killed, and several people were injured. I was hit by shrapnel in my left leg and fell. There were no ambulances or civilian vehicles to evacuate us. I called my sister Asil and told her I was hit. A few minutes later, her husband came to get me, and that’s when I fainted. I came to at my sister Asil’s house. They got a medic to come there and clean and bandage my wound.

About an hour later, I went back out to the street to cover what was happening. I reached the area around al-Awda Hospital. Whole blocks of buildings were gone, vanished. The remaining houses were on fire, and people were burning inside them. There were no firefighters, rescue forces or ambulances. I saw two ambulances going up in flames.

The houses were on fire for about four hours, and there was no one to help the people. People were putting the flames out with their hands. I stood there filming, crying and in shock. Vehicles around me were bombed and the passengers were killed. They were covered with blankets. The streets were filled with blood. Wherever you turned, you stepped on the blood of dead people. Scenes from out of this world. Sorrow and grief you can’t even grasp. I’ve never seen or imagined anything like it. There was a sense of terrible injustice.

I saw a guy come out of his house with a severed hand and say, "There are dead people inside." People’s faces were covered in dust and sand, blackened by soot. Women were crying and looking for their children. I heard women screaming when they found the bodies of their children and husbands on the street.

I saw a woman from the Jundiyeh family saying, "Where are my children?! They were here!" Then she found the charred body of one of her sons. She identified him by a bracelet he was wearing. It was a terrible sight. She cried, and I hugged her and cried with her. She kept saying, over and over, "My son is gone." Then I left and she stayed there, weeping.

The areas around al-Awda Hospital looked like they’d been hit by an earthquake. The houses were reduced to rubble. It was hard to recognize the streets. The routes changed. Vehicles were evacuating injured people and charred bodies. At that point, I broke down. I couldn’t do anything but cry.

I went back to my family at the IDP camp at the school to make sure everyone was okay. My brother Ahmad was taken to al-Awda Hospital. Shahinaz and Saedah told me they’d gone to check on our house and found the military had searched it. They found water bottles and rifle bullets the soldiers left behind. The soldiers threw all our food on the floor, tore up our clothes, examined my laptop and took the hard drive. They also confiscated Ahmad's phone.

I’m now at the IDP camp with my family.

 * Testimony given by phone to B’Tselem field researcher Olfat al-Kurd on 9 June 2024