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A 37-year-old divorced father of two, resident of Gaza City, a doctor at the Indonesian Hospital, testified on November 15, 2023, describing how he lost his 9-year-old son and was forced to flee with his family: I work as a general practitioner at the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza. I am divorced, and until the war broke out, I was living on Al-Thalathini Street in the Al-Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City with my two children: the eldest, Fadel (9 years old), who was martyred in the first week of the war, and the youngest, Jourie, 6 years old. My parents and other relatives also lived in the building where I lived. During the first week of the war, I actually lived in the hospital's emergency room, while my mother, Rehab Hashem (62 years old), took care of my children. For eight days, I only saw them three times due to the insane pressure at work and the constant influx of wounded and martyrs to the hospital. On Sunday, October 15, 2023, I was sleeping at home when, in the morning, an ambulance came to take me to the hospital, as getting there by any other means was dangerous. Before leaving the house, I entered my children's room, still asleep, and looked at them without waking them. It was the last time I saw my son alive. Getting to the hospital usually takes 20 minutes, but that day we left the house at 7:00 a.m. and arrived at 9:00 a.m. because the roads had been destroyed by Israeli shelling. The situation at the hospital was dire: dozens of doctors and other staff had fled the shelling in the south, resulting in a severe shortage of doctors. We were all working double shifts. That day, our internet connection was cut off, and I lost contact with my family or anyone else outside the hospital. That same evening, at 8:00 PM, the hospital director came to me and told me that our building had been bombed and that members of my family had been injured. I began to cry. An ambulance was then arranged to take me to Al-Shifa Hospital, where the wounded were evacuated. I arrived at Al-Shifa Hospital within half an hour and met two of my cousins, Mohammed Al-Daour (38 years old) and Raed Al-Daour (34 years old). They were the ones who told me the painful news of my son Fadel's martyrdom. I began to cry again, and then I saw my brother Ibrahim (26 years old), who works as a doctor at Al-Shifa Hospital. He was in shock, and when I saw him, I burst into tears. We headed to the autopsy institute, where I found Fadel's body. He had been shot in the chest. I stood in front of him, frozen. That day, I was unable to leave Al-Shifa because there had been so much shelling. The situation was very dangerous, and transportation was nonexistent. The next day, October 16, 2032, my brothers and I buried Fadel. I couldn't even look at him. My cousin, an 8-month-old baby named Ahmed Shadi al-Haddad, was also killed in the bombing of the building. We buried him the same day. After burying Fadel, I couldn't leave the cemetery. I wanted to stay with him. Those were very difficult moments. From there, I headed to the home of my brother Ahmed (29 years old) in the Sabra neighborhood. My father, mother, and all my brothers were there, and they told me that there had been no warning before the bombing of our building. The building is five stories high, and the missile hit the first and second floors. At that moment, Fadel was in my parents' apartment on the first floor, and my mother was in another apartment with my cousins who had fled their home and taken refuge in our building. Little Ahmed was with his mother on the second floor. We stayed for two weeks in my brother Ahmed's apartment. But the sound of explosions and the roar of warplanes didn't stop, the bakeries were destroyed, and it was no longer possible to buy bread. Eventually, we decided to travel to Khan Yunis. We left the house on Saturday, November 11, 2023, at around 9:00 a.m.—my parents, my aunt Shadia (68 years old) and her daughter Lujain (27 years old), my brother Ahmed and his wife, my brother Mohammed and his wife and their two young sons, and Jourie and I. My aunt, the mother of little Ahmed, who was martyred, refused to leave. We reached Salah a-Din Street, which leads south. The street was crowded with cars and pedestrians going in the same direction. After a short drive, the Israeli army prevented us from continuing in our cars, so we abandoned the car and switched to a donkey cart. But after traveling about 500 meters, we encountered a tank near a checkpoint set up by the Israeli army, where the Netzarim settlement was located. The soldiers ordered us to get out of the vehicle and continue on foot. On the way, we passed the first tank, then four others, with each tank separated by about 100 meters. Israeli soldiers "supervised" us through loudspeakers and binoculars. They ordered us to turn off our cell phones and not use them on the way, to walk quickly with our right hand raised, and not to stop or look right or left. On the way, I heard soldiers telling two young men to drop their phones and lie down on the ground. We kept walking, and I don't know what happened to the two men next. We walked about seven kilometers until we reached the Bureij refugee camp, and from there, we were picked up by a car belonging to a satellite broadcasting station where my brother Ahmed, a journalist, works. They took us to an emergency shelter at an UNRWA facility in Khan Younis. We arrived at around 3:00 PM. Under normal circumstances, the journey from our home to Khan Younis takes half an hour. We entered the tent of my brother Sami (38 years old), who had arrived with his family about two weeks earlier. After that, I took my daughter Jourie to my ex-wife's house, as she lives in Khan Younis. My aunt and her daughter went to friends' houses in Khan Younis, and I stayed with my father in Sami's tent, so there were eight of us in the tent. The situation in the UNRWA shelter was very difficult. The agency provided almost no assistance to the people here, not even mattresses. Everyone built their tents from wood, cloth, and whatever other materials they could find. Life here is very difficult. To use the toilet, you have to stand in line for two hours, and when water is distributed to drink or to wash, you also have to stand in long lines. Sometimes you have to stand in line for an entire day just to get a bag of bread, if bread is distributed at all. There is no medical care, and diseases are spreading. The place is suitable for about 10,000 people, but the number of people here exceeds 40,000, and more may arrive. The tents are close together, and there is not a shred of privacy. All this is in addition to the daily bombing and the terror people feel here. I personally have lost the ability to feel or express emotions. My tears have frozen in my eyes. I spend time in silence, thinking about my child and what he did to deserve to die a week after his birthday, which was on October 7, 2023. The Israeli army does not differentiate between civilians and combatants; it bombs civilians here all the time. I was performing my humanitarian duty as a doctor at the hospital and thought my children would be safe with their grandmother, but unfortunately there is no safe place in the Gaza Strip. Even the UNRWA emergency shelter, where we are now, could be bombed. *This testimony was recorded by B'Tselem field researcher Olfat al-Kurd.