Translated Content:
(39 years old), a mother of six, from the Shuja'iyya neighborhood in Gaza City, spoke about her 7-year-old daughter being seriously injured in the bombing of a school that had become a displacement camp, Deir al-Balah, July 27, 2024: Until the war broke out, I lived with my husband, Jamal Fariz Huso, and our children: Yamen (14 years old), Yazan (13 years old), Mohammed (12 years old), Jamal (10 years old), Sila (7 years old), and Suwar (3 years old), in the Shuja'iyya neighborhood of Gaza City. Two weeks after the war began, when the Israeli army ordered us to evacuate the northern part of the Strip, I moved south with the children. My husband stayed in Gaza City to care for his elderly parents who were unable to flee south. At first, I moved to a school that was being used as a displacement camp in Deir al-Balah and stayed there for about two months. Those were terrifying days. I had to take care of everything because my husband wasn't with me, and we lived in fear all the time. Life at school was difficult. I didn't have enough money to buy enough food and flour, and we were short of many things because we left the house in only the lightest clothes. The toilets at the school were contaminated, and we received almost no food aid. All my children contracted Hepatitis A. The condition of my son Yazan and my little daughter, Suwar, deteriorated. I took them to the hospital and stayed with them for a few days. They only gave them saline and glucose solutions; they had no other treatment. The doctor asked me to give them honey, jam, dates, and mineral water. My financial situation was difficult, and I couldn't afford honey and mineral water. Sometimes, the food packages contained jam and sweet syrup, which I used to feed Yazan and Suwar while they drank plain water. Around December 2023, I left that school after an Israeli military drone flew over it and I feared it would be bombed. I moved to the house of friends in Deir al-Balah and lived there in one room for two months. There, too, as in the displaced persons camp at the school, we lived in a constant state of fear, without electricity or running water. Family members of friends we were staying with came to live there, so we left and moved to another displaced persons camp in Deir al-Balah, at the Sayyida Khadija School. We stayed there for about five months. There were many displaced persons. The place was extremely overcrowded, and there weren't enough toilets for so many people. Water was difficult to come by. I couldn't provide my children with what they needed, such as food and clothing, because I didn't have the money. Here, too, I was very afraid of the bombing and suffered from the need to be solely responsible for the children. It was difficult for me to see my children without their father, and I had many problems with other displaced persons because my husband wasn't with me.
Sila Husu after her injury. Photo kindly provided by the family.
On Saturday, July 27, 2024, I registered my daughter Sila to study in a tent near the displaced persons camp. She was happy, took her bag, and went there with her friends. Around 11:00 a.m., the school we were staying in was hit by several rockets. I started screaming and crying, afraid for my children. A few moments later, I saw Sila coming back to me at the school from the tent where she had been teaching. She was crying loudly, asking why they were bombing us. All my children were screaming and crying. There were dead people around us, body parts, rubble, and stones, and we could hear the screams of displaced people from all directions. After about an hour, the Israeli army ordered everyone to evacuate the school. I took the children and we ran away. On the way, we saw the bodies of children, body parts, and ambulances transporting the wounded. As we tried to escape, the school was hit again, and my daughter Sila was hit in the head by shrapnel. Her head was covered in blood. I hugged her and screamed for help. My son Mohammed took off his shirt and tried to bandage Sila's head to stop the bleeding. I screamed for an ambulance, but no one paid attention. A young man came, took Sila from me, and ran with her to the hospital. My children and I ran after him until he got her to an ambulance, which then took her to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. When I arrived at the hospital, I found Sila in the emergency room with serious injuries. Her head was cut open, and she had a fracture in her right eye bone and a detached retina. She remained like that all day with only a drip, without being seen by a doctor because there were so many wounded and dead. She then underwent surgery to stop the bleeding and close the fracture in her skull, and they implanted a platinum plate in her forehead above her right eye. Sila remains in Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital to this day. She suffers from wound infections, and the hospital doesn't have the antibiotics she needs. Most of the other medications she needs are also unavailable. She needs additional head surgeries to prevent fluids from leaking from her skull through her nose or eye socket. The doctors say her condition is serious and complex and that she needs treatment outside the Strip, but unfortunately, there is almost no way out of Gaza today. I am in the hospital with Sila, and the rest of my children are in a tent with their aunt, my sister, in the town of a-Zawayda in the central Gaza Strip. Sila cannot move into the tent because it is too dirty and hot. She needs to continue receiving treatment in the hospital, fresh food, and a clean environment. I try to prevent her from looking at photos of herself or in the mirror, because it affects her psychological state, especially when she sees old photos of herself. She asks when her hair will grow back, when she will be able to open her eyes, and when she will be beautiful again.* This testimony was given by B'Tselem field researcher Olfat al-Kurd on August 25, 2025.