Translated Content:
Gaza/Yahya al-Yaqubi:
The call to prayer echoed from the minarets, but the Yarmouk Mosque remained silent for the first time since 1974. Nothing remained but scattered stones piled atop one another after Israeli warplanes leveled it to the ground last Sunday evening. Its minaret survived, standing as a silent witness to the desecration of places of worship and the destruction of mosques.
Israeli missiles destroyed the three-story mosque and altered the landscape of the area near Ramzoun al-Ghafri on al-Jalaa Street. The facades of all the surrounding houses were transformed; walls were shattered, windows were broken, doors were blown off their hinges, leaving homes open, and cars were destroyed. This was the scene when we arrived.
Bilal Salama (38 years old) and his three brothers were still retrieving some essential belongings from their home, located opposite the mosque, less than ten meters away. It was one of the most damaged houses in the vicinity of the mosque.
A Sudden Bombing
While Salama was watching the news and following developments, a series of missile strikes erupted nearby after a flash of light in the area. Stones rained down, and smoke filled the air. For minutes, visibility was obscured, and the screams of his three children filled the air. Fear gripped the three-story house, home to about thirty people.
With his face and clothes covered in dust, Salama stood in front of his house, the image of the bombing vividly before his eyes. He recounted the incident to the newspaper "Palestine," saying, "The bombing was sudden. Without any warning, we felt the house exploding. After the smoke and dust cleared, visibility began to return. I found my daughter bleeding from flying glass that had struck her head. We all rushed downstairs to check on my parents, who live on the ground floor, which opens directly onto the mosque."
He moved a little and stopped at the door of his father's house, which was completely covered in rubble and stones. He continued, "As you can see, we couldn't enter from here, so we went around the back and made openings in the walls. We started removing the rubble until we reached my father, mother, and some of my grandchildren. They were trapped under stones that had been thrown at them from the mosque."
His voice continued with the rest of the details: "I expected to find my father dead, since he was on dialysis and suffered from heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure. But we found him alive and breathing, by the grace of God. They were all fine, and we took them to the hospital. Then we went back to get some essential clothes."
Their house, and many of the houses surrounding the mosque, are no longer habitable. In addition to the holes the bombing made in the walls and windows, the area's water lines and infrastructure were also damaged, and water leaked from the pipes.
Salama was born in 1986, while the mosque was built in 1974. He grew up next to it, within its walls, and was raised to the sound of its call to prayer. At that time, it was the only mosque in the area, and it produced many generations of students, including memorizers of the Holy Quran and leaders, among them the former Minister of the Interior and prominent leader in the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, Sheikh Saeed Siam.
Salama witnessed many events that took place in the mosque when it was besieged by the Israeli occupation during the First Palestinian Intifada, also known as the "Stone Intifada." Gas canisters were constantly raining down on the courtyard of their home, which had an asbestos roof at the time. Eventually, the family decided to leave, but their longing for the mosque and its surroundings overwhelmed them. After twenty years of living away, they returned to witness a crime even greater than the one they experienced during the Intifada.
A Social Hub
The Yarmouk Mosque was distinguished by its role in connecting people socially. It hosted Quran memorization circles, social activities, and nurtured generations. After its demolition, Salama doesn't know where he will pray, as the nearest mosque is about a kilometer away. He wrings his hands, his voice filled with sorrow as he laments his fate, his eyes brimming with grief and his face pale and dusty: "Before you lies a scene of devastation and destruction. The mosque is gone, and so is the house. The most painful thing is that we will never hear the call to prayer again."
On the other side of the mosque, Haj Jihad Jaarour sits, his eyes filled with despair as he watches his bulldozer, destroyed by the bombing, and his house and construction tools, all now gray. He wrings his hands and laments: "As you can see, everything is gone—the house, the tools. May God compensate us."
Jaarour bought his bulldozer in 1995, and it had been the family's source of income ever since. He can't believe what has happened. He recounts the moment of the bombing: "We were sitting in the basement of the house when suddenly we heard the bombing. The house shook, and smoke filled the air."
The Yarmouk Mosque is one of several mosques that the occupation forces bombed and destroyed as part of their ongoing aggression against places of worship, crossing all red lines.
Among the mosques targeted by the occupation warplanes were the Western Mosque in the Al-Shati area, the Tayba Mosque in Beit Lahia, the Al-Da’wa Mosque north of the Nuseirat camp, the Al-Yassin and Al-Sousi Mosques in the Al-Shati camp, the Al-Ansar Mosque north of the Gaza Strip, and the Al-Habib Muhammad Mosque west of Khan Yunis.