Translated Content:
A 34-year-old father of three from Beit Hanun told B'Tselem field researcher Muhammad Sabah on November 14, 2023, how he and his family were forced to flee their home: Before the war, I lived in Beit Hanun with my wife and our three children: Mustafa (7 years old), Elias (5 years old), and Shaker (11 months old). We lived in one building with my four brothers. When the war broke out, we were afraid of the bombing, so we all decided to leave. There were 32 of us, most of us children. My family moved to live with my wife's relatives in the Jabalya refugee camp, but the next day we decided to move elsewhere because the bombing was constantly taking place near our house. We moved to the al-Saftai neighborhood, west of Jabalya, and lived there in a storage room belonging to relatives. But there, too, the bombing was intense. The sounds were very loud and terrifying, so we and our children were scared. The next day, October 10, 2023, we moved again, this time to an empty apartment belonging to relatives in the Al-Janina neighborhood of Rafah. There were other people in the building, from the Al-Aidi family and the Zein family. I was in our apartment with my brothers, their wives, and their children. We were about twenty people in total. The situation in this apartment was better, although there was no electricity there, there was a water shortage, and we could hear the sounds of shelling. But we decided to stay because we had no other choice; there was nowhere else to go. On Monday, October 23, 2023, at around 1:00 PM, my brothers-in-law Khaled Al-Aidi (31 years old), Ibrahim Abu Sala'a (26 years old), and Ahmed Abu Sala'a (22 years old) and I went out to get our haircuts and buy some necessities. We moved about 500 meters from the house. At that time, my wife left with my mother-in-law Zeinab (61 years old), and my children went to the neighbors, who are relatives of ours from the Al-Kurd family. We arrived at the barber's shop and as we sat down, we heard the sound of very heavy bombing. The whole area shook. I immediately called my brother-in-law Ahmed, who had gone to buy a charger. He said the bombing was very close, but he didn't know exactly where because the whole area was filled with dust and smoke. A few minutes later, we realized that the building we were hiding in had been bombed. We ran there and found the house completely destroyed. I was in shock. The scene was terrifying. There were a lot of people there. We tried to remove the rubble to look for people buried underneath. We transferred those who weren't injured to Rabaa al-Adawiya School, west of Rafah. We kept searching the whole time for the injured and the dead. I lost my brother Mazen (44 years old) and his children: Azza (20 years old), Khaled (17 years old), Mohammed (15 years old), Mai (16 years old), and Rahaf (8 years old). I also lost my brother Osama (38 years old), his wife Samoud (29 years old), and their children Dana (6 years old), Alin (3 years old), and Sharaf (9 years old). My family and I moved to the school and stayed there for ten days. The overcrowding there was very severe, so we moved to another school, also in Rafah, which had opened five days earlier. We thought the overcrowding would be less, but when we arrived, the school was completely full. We only found one small room. We put seven women from the family and ten boys in it, while the young men and I stayed in the courtyard and sat under the open sky. The conditions were harsh. Each couple got one mattress, and the children slept with their mothers. Our situation was unbearable. Today it started to rain, and the weather at night is very cold. There is no food or water here, and we stand in line to get anything. We get a can of water, which should be enough for drinking, bathing, washing dishes, and washing clothes. For more than 15 days, I haven't showered or changed my clothes. I have no clothes other than the ones I'm wearing. I lost all my clothes and those of my wife and children. I also lost two cell phones. We are still alive, but without a soul. We just wish for this destructive war to end and for us to return to our homes and lives, even though we don't even know if our homes are still standing or not. Read the testimony of Mohammed Nafeth al-Aidi and the list of those killed. Read the testimony of Mohammed Nabil al-Aidi.