Residents of the Gaza Strip live in a humanitarian disaster zone. This entirely man-made disaster is a direct result of a policy employed by Israel, which, to this day, continues to dictate what daily life in Gaza looks like. This callous, unjustifiable policy sentences the nearly two million residents of the Gaza Strip to a life of abject poverty in near inhuman conditions no longer seen in the Western world. In testimonies collected by B'Tselem's field researchers, residents of the Gaza Strip describe their lives, the dreams they will not get to realize, the medical conditions they have no way of treating, the ongoing separation from family members and friends outside the Strip, and the unbearable suffering caused by their confinement to the Strip, with no hope for change. Read more >> I picked up my husband and carried him on my back. His body was limp from the injury and very heavy. There was no one to help me, and I had to carry him on my own. I walked for a bit, rested, and then continued. He was still bleeding. We got to my uncle’s house, about 50 meters from ours. [...] Suddenly, I noticed his left hand was shaking badly. I asked if he wanted a massage, but then I saw he was dead. I checked again—I wasn’t mistaken. He died right there, in my arms. ‘Azizah Qishtah ( 27 May 2025 ) [...] the military sent a quadcopter into the house and used a loudspeaker to order us to raise our hands. The quadcopter filmed us. Then soldiers came in and forced us to strip. [...] The soldiers even used [my son] ‘Abdallah as a human shield—they forced him to accompany them as they searched the house and then to tie up the other men. Then they tied him up and arrested him too. [...] they ordered us—just the women, at gunpoint—to walk to southern Gaza along the coastline. [...] We walked for two days. [...] Along the way, we saw dozens of bodies—women, children, men—lying on the beach, with dogs feeding on them. Some of the corpses had disintegrated from the saltwater. Quadcopters hovered overhead the whole time. Firyal Safi ( 26 April 2025 ) On 2 March 2025, the crossings were closed and food imports were banned. Goods gradually disappeared from the market, and now we can’t buy any food and there’s also no aid. [...] The war resumed on 18 March 2025 and we went back to a nightmare of killing, bombing, destruction and displacement. [...] For over six weeks, no food has entered the Gaza Strip. [...] Sometimes I find one or two pitas and that’s all we eat. We go to sleep hungry. We wake up hungry and terrified by bombings and the noise of aircraft. Adham Abu Naser ( 24 April 2025 ) In this brutal war, we’ve endured so much: killing, displacement, destruction, and hunger. But the hunger we’ve experienced in the past two months is on a different scale. The crossings are closed, and no goods are allowed into Gaza. This is another method of warfare the Israeli military uses against civilians in Gaza – starvation. My children beg me to get them meat or eggs, and I have to tell them there is none and I can’t. What crime have my children committed? Why must they starve? ‘Abdallah Shaqurah ( 23 April 2025 ) My youngest, ‘Az a-Din, cried a lot and kept saying, “I’m hungry.” It broke my heart to hear it, and I cried over his situation — but that was the situation for everyone. I explained to him that everyone was hungry and there was nothing I could do. [...] We didn’t get food package coupons because we weren’t living in a tent, so we had to pay insane prices for food. Two of my children, Layan and Mahmoud, came down with viral hepatitis and there was no treatment available. I couldn’t provide them with the healthy nutrition they needed to fight the illness. Hala Sha’sha’ah ( 22 April 2025 ) I was nine months pregnant and weighed only 55 kg because I was eating just one meal a day — lentils, fava beans or falafel. When I went to the hospital to give birth, the doctors couldn’t believe I was pregnant. My baby girl was born weighing only 2 kg due to the lack of food. Anwar Hamad ( 20 April 2025 ) Two months before the war broke out, we renovated the house and bought new furniture for the living room and the children’s bedrooms, to celebrate Najat’s high school graduation and our son’s admission to university. I took out a bank loan to pay for the renovations. About a month ago, we heard from neighbors and acquaintances that our home was completely destroyed. When we found out, it was a black day for all of us. The children cried—they had so many memories and beloved things they left behind. I fell into depression. I felt like I was back to square one, that we have nothing. Khader Abu Diyah ( 25 February 2025 ) On 28 December, the Israeli military bombed the school and two classrooms where people were staying were hit. I went into one of the classrooms and saw about eight dead bodies, body parts, injured people and a lot of blood. Suddenly, I heard crying and saw a little baby, just a few months old. I picked him up and left the classroom. I saw people running in panic and screaming. I didn’t know if his parents were killed or injured. I stood there waiting for someone to come to me, but everyone rushed out of the classroom and passed me by, and no one came up to me. The military ordered everyone at the school to evacuate and go to the southern part of the Gaza Strip immediately. My family and I left the school, taking the unknown baby with us. I decided to call him Hamudah Rasem Nabhan ( 17 February 2025 ) My mother said that the war was over and that she wanted me and my fiancée to get married already. She said she would hold the most beautiful wedding for me. The next day, the occupation shattered all of my dreams, and from happy wishes I went into deep mourning. On Sunday, 16 January 2025, the Israeli military bombed our house directly, and everyone inside was killed: my mother, my brother Tariq, his wife ‘Ula, their three children who survived the previous bombing – Muhammad, Rital and little Ahmad, my sister Shirin, 43, and her two children – ‘Alaa, 10, and Diaa, 8. I had been looking forward so much to going back to Jabalya and reuniting with them after a year apart, to celebrating with them. But the occupation killed that dream, too. It hit me so hard, and all I wanted was to die to escape the pain. 'Amer a-Sultan ( 10 February 2025 ) The children wanted to play next to their father and I let them [...] I heard them laughing and playing. My husband looked up at the sky, at the surveillance planes, and was worried about the level of noise they were making. Suddenly, I heard a huge blast [...] I immediately turned around to look at them, but all I saw was black smoke. I screamed, “My husband and kids!” and ran to them. I found my daughter Raghad covered in blood, lying on her back. I shouted, “Raghad!” Raghad!” I was shocked. Then I found my husband ‘Abdallah. His clothes were like black coal. Then I saw my son Hamzah. His head was covered in blood. [...] They were all dead. Aya Hasunah a-Susi ( 01 February 2025 ) Ahmad Matar ( 22 January 2025 ) I found myself under the rubble. My mother’s sister Nidaa, who was next to me, died right before my eyes. I stayed trapped under the rubble for nearly an hour before they got me out and took me to a neighbor’s house. My father, who was hit by shrapnel all over his body and mostly in the pelvis, came with me. My brother Ahmad was removed from under the rubble before me, half an hour after the bombing. My mother, who got burns on her hand and had shrapnel wounds and bruises all over her body, went with him to the hospital, but she returned after half an hour and told me he had passed away. My little brother, ‘Abd a-Rahman, was injured in his leg, and my uncle had broken ribs and vertebrae in his spine, as well as head wounds that needed stitches. [...] That same day, they pulled the bodies of my maternal uncle, his wife, and my maternal aunts from under the rubble. They were buried shortly after, and I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to them. In the evening, they also got my grandfather’s body out. Shahd Salem ( 22 January 2025 ) I thought my husband and children were just injured, but when I arrived, I found out that my two sons, Suliman and Mustafa, had been killed and were already in the morgue. I was in shock and couldn’t face going to see them. When I asked about my husband and Malak, they told me they were both dead too and their bodies dismembered. My husband’s body stayed in the ambulance for two days, because the ambulance couldn’t reach the hospital until the army withdrew from the area. Asmaa al-Masri ( 19 January 2025 ) Mu’in Abu al-’Eish, A Paramedic ( 18 January 2025 ) We’re freezing cold in the tent and we have no way to heat it, because there’s no electricity and we can’t afford to buy firewood—it's too expensive. We don’t have enough blankets and winter clothes, either. At night, packs of stray dogs wander between the tents, and my children are very scared. Life in the tent was bad enough in the summer. My wife had headaches the whole summer because of the heat, and we suffered from insects and rodents. Bilal a-Raqab ( 12 January 2025 ) During the ceasefire early on in the war, I came back from the market to the school we were staying at, and suddenly saw Muhammad at the school. He arrived through the Netzarim checkpoint. I started screaming loudly, hugged him, and kissed his injured leg. Muhammad held me close and cried. It was a huge surprise. I didn’t know if I would see him again [...] In early April, I lost contact with Muhammad [...] Later, someone told me that he’d been killed. Jamalat Wadi ( 04 January 2025 ) Just before I dozed off, Rana [my wife] nursed ‘Aishah and checked to see she was okay. The baby slept with us.  We woke up at 6:00 A.M. I picked ‘Aishah up and she was like a block of ice, cold and stiff and blue, and her eyes were open. I held her in utter shock. She wasn’t breathing. ‘Adnan al-Qassas ( 31 December 2024 ) Hadil [my wife] woke up early in the morning and went to the bathroom. When she came back to the tent, she checked on the children and found ‘Ali frozen. He wasn’t breathing, and his face was blue. She started screaming and calling me: “Wake up, look at ‘Ali. I found him frozen, with a blue face.” I started screaming and crying and said: ‘Dear God, don’t take him from me.’ ‘Issam Saqer ( 30 December 2024 ) Ahmad al-‘Askari ( 23 October 2024 ) Ahmad Abu Foul ( 17 October 2024 ) The soldiers showed us a path to follow, but snipers were shooting indiscriminately there and my mother was hit in the leg. They also injured another woman and killed two of our neighbors. We carried my mother, and we all found shelter in a storage room that was still standing in a nearby house that was bombed. Bilal and I tore up our shirts and tried to dress her wound to stop the bleeding. Thirteen of us sat there in the storage room all night, listening to the bombings and shelling. Later, we stole into ruined homes nearby to look for food and blankets, but we couldn’t find anything in the rubble. Yaser Abu Rukbeh ( 07 October 2024 ) At the end of December 2023, my brother, Myasarah al-‘Ajouri (30) disappeared. We waited two days, and he still didn’t come. We waited two weeks, but Myasarah didn’t come back. After the army withdrew from the town and people returned, we went to look for him. We didn’t find him at his barbershop, and when we reached the house he rented, we found it had been bombed. We don’t know if he was there. We also searched in hospitals and reported him missing to the Red Cross but have been unable to get any information. Safaa al-Ghandur ( 03 October 2024 ) My nephew Mu’in [10], the sole survivor from his family, cried hysterically when he said goodbye to his mother and siblings. He was shocked and couldn’t believe they were all gone and he was left alone. Mu’in is broken. He keeps asking about his mother and his siblings. He tells me, “My father left us. Then my mother and brothers left me. What did I stay alive for?” I have no words to comfort him. Muamen ‘Awad ( 28 September 2024 ) When I woke up, I found myself buried in a pile of debris and rubble. Right before that, while I was asleep, I dreamt that I was walking and a missile fell on me. In the dream, my father, my wife, my son, my sister, and a mass of people were walking ahead of me. The sky wasn’t like the sky we know. Two people dressed in white stopped me and said, “You’re not going with them.” I stopped, and my wife and son kept walking. A few meters ahead of me, they turned and waved goodbye ‘Ali al-Nweiri ( 21 September 2024 ) On Thursday, 16 November 2023, we made dinner and sat down to eat. My son Mu’in was sleeping in the next room. When we finished eating, I went into the room where Mu’in was sleeping, along with my husband, our son ‘Imad, and my husband’s sister Ilham, 33. We didn’t hear any planes or bombs, but suddenly, the house came crashing down on us. [...] The next day, I was told ‘Imad had been killed. I sat next to Mu’in for four days while he was in intensive care. [...] I lost Mu’in on 20 November 2023. (Jihan Swelem-'Aweidah talked to B'Tselem in August 2024 about losing her little boys in a bombing. On 10 October, she was killed in another bombing). Jihan Swelem-’Aweidah ( 07 August 2024 ) The dog pounced on Muhammad and bit him in the chest. Muhammad was very frightened and started screaming at the dog: “Get away! Get off me! Get away!” The dog didn’t back off. It grabbed Muhammad’s left arm below the shoulder [...] Muhammad was already bleeding heavily from his arm. It was a terrible sight and we couldn’t do anything about it. We tried to shout to the soldiers that we were civilians, that they should get the dog away from Muhammad, that Muhammad had a disability, but they paid no attention to us. [...] Four of them pointed their guns at Muhammad. Another group of soldiers pointed their guns at us and forced us to get down on our knees. They ordered us to shut up. [...] The soldiers counted us and then ordered us to go downstairs. My mother said, “Let me take Muhammad because he’s sick,” but they refused. That was the last time we saw Muhammad. We left him bleeding on the couch. Sarah Bhar ( 20 July 2024 ) 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. Safinaz a-Loh ( 09 June 2024 ) The pediatric ward was full of patients – kids with cancer, hepatitis and many other illnesses. The hallways were crowded with sick and wounded people and the people staying with them. I have no words to describe what went on there. The whole time Nabil was treated in the hospitals in the Gaza Strip, he never got chemotherapy. Aya Kahil ( 03 June 2024 ) A doctor from al-’Awda Hospital called and told us the army had ordered all doctors over the age of 40 to go out to the hospital yard in their underwear. He said that Uncle ‘Adnan went down and was arrested. [...] All we knew was that Uncle ‘Adnan was in Ofer Prison and was being held under the Unlawful Combatants Law. Then, someone who was released from prison told us my uncle was not in the barracks [a nickname for the Sde Teiman facility] but in another detention facility. Then, before it was announced on the news, my father found out Uncle ‘Adnan had died in prison. Ruzan al-Bursh ( 29 May 2024 ) Ahlam a-Taluli ( 27 May 2024 ) I was praying in the shack when a massive explosion shook everything. The shack collapsed, and I felt something hit my back. Salma’s leg was badly injured, and Ahmad was buried under the rubble. Neighbors rushed to pull us out Muhammad and Hassan al-‘Ijleh ( 21 May 2024 ) One day, during the siege on the hospital, my uncle Amir and his children were sitting next to us. His son Karim, 3, was sitting on his lap when suddenly a bullet hit him in the head. He started bleeding, but there was no medical staff there. His mother held him. We bandaged his head with gauze, and then, even though it was dangerous outside, my uncle took him to the UNRWA al-Fakhura clinic. They told him Karim’s condition was very serious and he had to take him to al-Ma’amadani Hospital in Gaza. He didn’t manage to get him there, and at 6:00 P.M., Karim died. Shams Mhanna ( 21 May 2024 ) My daughter Afnan said: “Father. Where’s father? He didn’t wake up!” I shone a flashlight on my husband and saw he’d been hit in the head by shrapnel and was dying. My daughter Shaimaa was also hit in the head, and was semi-conscious. My sister-in-law Iman, 45, was screaming, “My leg! My leg!” When I tried to help her, another tank shell was fired at us and killed my three daughters, Afnan, Duha and Shaimaa, my son Mahmoud, and my nephew, whose name was also Mahmoud, 19. Samia ‘Abd a-Latif ‘Abd a-Ghafur ( 20 May 2024 ) [the] soldiers ordered us on loudspeakers to go out to the street. They ordered the men to stand facing the wall and forced us to strip down to our underwear. There were almost 300 of us there, naked. They forced us to kneel and tied our hands and feet with zip ties. They kept us like that for four hours, cursing us and our mothers all the time. They beat us on our heads and other parts of our body with their guns, and kicked us in the face with their military boots. The kicking made me bleed. Muhammad Shams ( 19 May 2024 ) Until the war, I lived with my husband and our nine children in the Tel a-Za’tar neighborhood in Jabalya Refugee Camp. But after October 7, the camp became a war zone. There were bombings and bodies everywhere. Families were bombed inside their homes, children, old people and women. UNRWA schools that were turned into IDP camps were also bombed. The Israeli army ordered us to move to places that were supposed to be safe and then bombed them. Here, in the northern Gaza Strip, nowhere is safe anymore. Asmahan Mahmoud a-Taluli ( 19 May 2024 ) On 16 November 2023, at around 2:00 A.M., I woke up to the sound of my husband shouting and calling for me. I heard him say that the station had been bombed. I was shocked because I hadn’t heard the explosion. All I could see around me was fire and dust. I could hear voices but couldn’t see anyone. I called out my children’s names. My husband started pulling our son Muhammad out to rescue him. I called for Malak. Then ambulances arrived. I couldn’t walk, so they carried me to an ambulance. While I was in the ambulance, the paramedics told me that my children were fine except for Malak. They told me she had been killed. I cried and screamed. Rabab al-Hito ( 19 May 2024 ) I went into our tent and discovered everyone who was in it had been hurt or killed. My three sisters, Afnan, 16, Shaimaa, 15, Duha, 13, my brother Mahmoud, 16, and my cousin Mahmoud, 19, who tried to call an ambulance earlier - they were all killed. My uncle’s wife was hurt in the leg and her son, Ahmad, 15, was hurt in the right thigh. It was a horrifying scene. It was all I could do to hold it together and not break down there. I couldn’t take care of the wounded because I was afraid they’d shell us again. I had to just abandon them. ‘Abd a-Rahman ‘Abd a-Ghafur ( 12 May 2024 ) The doctors decided to amputate my leg. They said otherwise I would develop sepsis and could die. They also discovered my blood sugar was not balanced, which was probably why I was thirsty all the time. They operated on me again, and when I woke up, I didn’t have a leg. It was a terrible feeling, I can’t describe it. After the amputation, the nurses changed my bandages every day, without anesthesia because there were no anesthetics. I screamed in pain Alaa Rif’at al-Kurd ( 08 May 2024 ) My son Yusef had a curtain wrapped around his neck. He started choking, and I helped him get it off so he could breathe. Karim, Alaa's son, was next to me. His head was covered in blood and he was unconscious. I tried to wake him up. My phone was on me, so I called my mother-in-law and told her the house had been bombed and that we were under the rubble. I wasn’t injured, thank God. I called out to Bushra but didn’t hear her voice. I heard my son Yusef’s voice for a moment, and then I didn’t hear him anymore.  Amal Rif’at al-Kurd ( 08 May 2024 ) My face was blue and my whole body was swollen. I was in very bad pain and felt as if my right hand and leg were cut off. I was taken by ambulance to Abu Yusef a-Najar Hospital in Rafah, and all the way I called for my children and told them my children were under the rubble. When I got to the hospital, I found my brothers there and asked again and again about my children. Everyone told me the children were alive and would be rescued just as I was. Only later that day did they tell me that my husband, my children, my brothers-in-law Shadi and Ousamah, and Ousamah’s family, all were killed. Suhair Dabur ( 03 May 2024 ) Maram was killed about ten days after her baby and was buried without us being able to say goodbye to her. She got married about a year and a half before the war. She was a business management graduate, and she worked in the field. She was a vivacious person, with a sweet temper and a beautiful laugh. When Yumana was born, she was so happy. Madlin Shaqlieh-Sawalhi ( 22 April 2024 ) I felt paralyzed. Later, I found out that I was hit by one bullet in the neck and another in the back. [My sister] Mahasen tried again and again to drag me away. After half an hour, my daughter Malak showed up with a white flag. She also tried to shield me with her body. Then my cousin Fatimah, also came there with a white flag. Hasnaa Abu Hasnah ( 14 April 2024 ) The hospital care was very limited, but thankfully, the birth was easy and I went home the same day. Taymaa was born small, weighing less than three kilos. I had nothing to eat after the birth, and I didn’t have enough milk to breastfeed her. I couldn’t find formula to supplement her diet. I was very afraid for her. Wafaa al-Kurd ‘Issa ( 11 April 2024 ) I grabbed my father by the legs and dragged him with great difficulty out of the line of fire. He was hit by three bullets: one in the chest, one in the stomach, and the third, which caused the worst injury, was in the left hip. His intestines were exposed. I got a clean piece of cloth and put it on the wound. He told me to leave him, as if he knew he was going to die and there was no way to save him. Asmaa Hindi ( 01 April 2024 ) My husband was a vegetable vendor and once in a while he managed to sell some vegetables, and that's how we made a living. On 2 November 2023, my husband went out with his cousin Zaki a-Rifi and some others to try and sell vegetables so we could buy necessities, especially diapers for Maher. I tried to persuade him not to go because I was afraid, there were bombings around us all the time. But he insisted and said they were civilians that weren’t endangering anyone. Zaki came back after 20 minutes, badly injured in his hand, and said my husband was killed. Riham a-Rifi ( 26 March 2024 ) I was taken to an iron cage where I stayed with other female detainees for 11 days. My hands were in zip ties the whole time. We were given very little food. I barely even ate that so I wouldn’t have to go to the bathroom, which was far away and didn’t have a tap. If you were menstruating, you got one pad. In the bathroom, we helped each other. There was no shower, either. There were male and female soldiers around us all the time, and they wouldn’t let us sleep. They would turn on the light, turn on speakers, eat in front of us and swear at us. Nadiah al-Hilu ( 18 March 2024 ) We were taken out of the cage and dragged to a bus, like animals. The bus started driving and the whole way, the female soldiers guarding us wouldn’t let us lift our heads. They swore at us, hit us on our hands and took pictures of us. After some time, the bus stopped. We were taken off it and each asked our name and photographed. A female soldier grabbed us by the head and ordered us to kiss the Israeli flag. Another female soldier bashed my head against the side of the bus. Nabilah Miqdad ( 16 March 2024 ) There are nine of us in the tent, without water, electricity, medications, and almost no food. Life here feels like a disaster. We’re living in the desert, in conditions unfit for human habitation. It’s hard to get potable water or even water for cleaning. There is no way to bathe, and we don’t do laundry either. We’re very cold because we have no warm clothes. There are insects everywhere here - mosquitoes and flies, and reptiles too. We’ve all lost a lot of weight and feel weak and exhausted all the time. We barely sleep at night. Fatimah Baker ( 16 March 2024 ) Relatives told me the Israeli military had invaded a-Zeitoun, where my husband was staying. They said he went to stay with his uncle Samir and that soldiers entered the house and arrested Samir, seven of his sons and my husband. Until yesterday, I hadn't heard any news from Shadi. Then, one of his cousins, Jawad, 17, who was arrested and released yesterday, called me. He told me that on the day of the arrest, the soldiers took all the men out of the house and ordered them to strip, and told all the women to go south. He told me that they tied the hands of all the men behind their backs, blindfolded them with bits of cloth, beat them, and poured cold water on them. Shadi was still injured, and Jawad said the soldiers beat him, too. Hala ‘Obeid ( 14 March 2024 ) I lost my cousins and my neighbor, all of them my friends, just to get some flour and canned goods after months of starving. The hunger here is real and extreme, and we have no other way to get food. We go there and risk our lives because it's the only option, but when you go, you don't know if you'll come back. Now I don't know if I'm capable of going there again. On the other hand, when the flour runs out at home, I won't have any choice, despite the danger Isma’il al-Ghandur ( 12 March 2024 ) I was on the balcony with my two grandchildren, Julia and Majd. The rest of the family were inside, getting ready for lunch. Suddenly, I felt my body flying through the air, and then I fell on the floor. Julia and Majd crashed to the floor, too, and there was dust and debris everywhere. There was a lot of smoke too, and I could smell fire. My shoulder felt dislocated, and I couldn’t move or get up on my feet. Then I started feeling like the building was collapsing underneath me, until the third floor became the first floor. Hanan Saleh ( 07 March 2024 ) We buried Yazan that day in the cemetery here in Rafah. Losing him is terrible. I look at the mattress he slept on until he was hospitalized, and all I can feel is grief and deep sorrow. I always tried to give Yazan everything he needed and take care of him, but the conditions here are so difficult now that I had nothing to give him any more. The deadly hunger here killed him. Sharif al-Kafarneh ( 06 March 2024 ) Alma talks about her family non-stop, about her brothers and sister. She talks about how she saw her brother under the rubble. She keeps asking to go back there to look for her family members under the rubble. We told her there was nothing to go back to. I even took her to a place where you can see the northern Gaza Strip from far away, so she would see the destruction and understand that it’s impossible to go back there right now. Sami al-Hadad ( 02 March 2024 ) We took the rubble off the bodies by hand. We did all the work with our hands and with the help of some light equipment. In the end, we managed to get out the bodies of Muhammad, my wife Islam, my father, my two sisters and my aunt. I did it emotionlessly. I can’t feel anything anymore, and that made it possible for me to get them all out. After that, I buried them next to each other in al-Falujah cemetery in Jabalya R.C. Ahmad Abu Foul ( 01 March 2024 ) Since then, I've been alone in the world. I lost my family. I have no home and no future. I cry every day. I go to sleep alone and wake up lonely and lost. I came back from Turkey a month before the war started because of my family. My mother really wanted me to get married. We hoped the war would end and we’d go back to our lives, but they killed my mother, my father and everyone else in my family. They killed everyone. That's how I became an orphan, alone. My life is black now. I don't think I'll ever get over the trauma. Ibrahim Hasunah ( 29 February 2024 ) I have no family left. We were just starting out as a family. We were happy together. On 13 October, we celebrated our first wedding anniversary. All I have left are our two wedding rings, which I’m keeping. I have no other mementos. All the photos and videos are gone. Our clothes, my wife’s and daughter’s belongings, all gone. My house in Gaza City was completely destroyed by the bombing. It was bombed just one day before I left the city. All my memories with my family are gone forever. Hazem al-Madhun ( 28 February 2024 ) we heard a loud explosion and the roof of the building and its pillars collapsed on us. Everything was dark and full of dust. Hanan was still holding my hand when a block of concrete fell on her, and I couldn’t move. I screamed out to the children and only Ibrahim answered. He said, “Dad, I’m going to die.” I told him to recite the Shahadatain. I shouted for help, hoping someone would hear me and save my wife and children. I called out to Hanan, but she didn’t respond. Shadi Fatayer ( 27 February 2024 ) I haven’t showered in ten days because there isn’t always water and when there is we save it to clean the toilets. A six-liter jug of water, which is not really drinkable, costs five shekels (~ USD 1.4). That’s a lot of money for us. My son Yusef, 17, walks about a kilometer to a place where you can fill up water and waits in line for hours just to fill two jugs for which you have to pay. We use one for drinking, even though it is not clean water, and the other for bathing. The children are still wearing the same clothes they wore when we left home and we don’t have enough water to wash them. Khamis al-A’araj ( 20 February 2024 ) Because of the hunger, my wife can barely nurse our nine-month-old son, Yamen, and baby formula is nowhere to be found either. A little while ago, we managed to buy a kilo of dates for NIS 40 (~ USD X), which has been helping us survive. We live off what we manage to get - a little rice, a little corn we ground, and also barley, which is meant for feeding farm animals. The price of barley has also gone crazy. Now even the barley ran out and people have started grinding bird and rabbit food. But there is not much of that either. There is no food for humans or for animals. Ibrahim al-Ghandur ( 19 February 2024 ) I miss our old life, before the war, without all the bombings and killings. We’re exhausted. We’re broken and have no strength left. In one of the bombings, I lost a lot of people form my family and my parents were spared by luck alone. Now, the military might invade Rafah and force us out again. I don't know where else we can run. We’ve been displaced four times. I don’t know what fate awaits us. Amneh al-Masri ( 18 February 2024 ) Hanan Abu Rabi’ ( 13 February 2024 ) Nasmah al-Jamal ( 11 February 2024 ) I was kept there with my hands in metal handcuffs day and night, and sometimes my legs, too. Sometimes they hung me by one hand and left me like that for three or four hours until I fainted. I couldn’t move the other hand because my shoulder must have been broken from the beatings when the platinum came out [...] I was taken to the interrogation room about 5 or 6 times and asked about my friends and neighbors and whether I had undergone military training. All they gave us to eat was a slice of bread, a cucumber and a small piece of cheese. Now and then we got some tuna fish and a bit of water to drink. ‘Abd al-Qader Tafesh ( 07 February 2024 ) I’ve started having diarrhea and vomiting, and my body has become weak. About a month ago, I started getting stomach aches and swelling, and tingling in different parts of my body. I started throwing up everything I ate, even the water I drank. After this went on for about two weeks, I went to the Kuwaiti hospital here in Rafah. They ran tests and diagnosed me with hepatitis. The doctor said it was due to lack of hygiene and told me to be more careful and also to eat healthy. He said there was no cure and it would go away on its own if I was careful. Ahmad Abu ‘Aydah ( 30 January 2024 ) They put me in a jeep again, with other detainees, and transferred us to a large structure that had a rough floor, like concrete, and a tin roof. The sides were open and it was very, very cold. There were a lot of detainees there. When we got there, they blindfolded us and ordered us to kneel down on our knees. I was held there for 35 days, and all that time we were not allowed to move or speak to each other. We ate and slept with our hands tied and our eyes covered. Muhammad Abu Marsah ( 25 January 2024 ) Every day, the soldiers ordered us to sit on our knees from 5:00 A.M. until the evening. We ate and drank with our hands tied in front of us. If we looked sideways, or even spoke to one another, they would punish us and make us stand with our hands raised for about three hours. On top of that, they didn’t let us go to the bathroom when we asked, and they didn’t always let us pray, either. Mahmoud Abu Qadus ( 23 January 2024 ) The whole way, the children cried from hunger, thirst, and fear at the sight of the bodies in the streets. We walked to a military checkpoint south of a-Zeitun neighborhood, along with a lot of other people who were carrying white flags. When we got to the checkpoint, the soldiers swore at us over loudspeakers: “Go, animals.” We kept walking until the entrance to a-Nuseirat Refugee Camp. I suffered from severe pain in my legs the whole way, because I have a herniated disc and had surgery two months before the war. Rami Riyad Abu Dalfeh ( 20 January 2024 ) I was supposed to go back to Tel Hashomer on 8 October for 30 days of biological treatment, two pills a day, to prevent a relapse, and for a pelvic joint transplant on 10 October. Then came the Hamas attack and the war began. Since then, I haven’t been able to go to the hospital and haven’t received the treatment, because the medication isn’t available in Gaza. I’m very stressed and afraid that the cancer will return. I’m not under observation, not getting my treatment and can’t go to the hospital. Majed a-Satari ( 19 January 2024 ) Maryam Barud ( 19 January 2024 ) They blindfolded me with a piece of cloth and handcuffed me in front with white zip ties.There were six of us girls. One of the girls was in pain. The soldiers asked me to translate what she was saying into English, and I translated that she thought she’d miscarried. One of the soldiers said, ‘Oh my God.’ A doctor came in and covered her with a blanket. She was told to put on shoes, so she wouldn’t be so cold. The soldiers told us to sleep, but it was too cold and we were lying handcuffed on rocks, so we weren’t really able to. A. D., A pharmacy student ( 17 January 2024 ) The shelling grew worse and I was worried about Adham [my son] and Diab [my nephew], so I went out looking for them. On the way, I was hit in the hand by a shot from an Israeli drone. I heard Adham and Diab shouting for help, but there was heavy shelling and I couldn’t reach them, even though they were about five meters away from me. Sami ‘Awwadallah Baker ( 17 January 2024 ) Nidal Sharaf ( 07 January 2024 ) After the war started, my milk dwindled and I could barely nurse Alma anymore. I had to get formula and give her two bottles a day. At first she did okay on the formula, but then we couldn't get that brand anymore, and when we switched brands she didn’t respond well [...] She’s lost weight, she coughs a lot, and has diarrhea and vomits. Sometimes she runs a high fever. Malak Abu al-Kheir (Dabash) ( 05 January 2024 ) A few days ago, I took Wisam to the doctor here in the camp. He prescribed eight rounds of inhalation, one a day. I took Wisam to the European Hospital east of Khan Yunis, and he got one round of inhalation. Then we came back to the IDP camp. I didn’t want to stay there because I was afraid the hospital would be bombed, so he didn’t get the rest of the treatment. Riwaa Miqdad ( 05 January 2024 ) They kept me lying on the ground in our garden for about half an hour. Then they took me like that, naked, to another house in the neighborhood, about 150 meters from my house. They took my photo and gave me a number (058793). Farid ‘Amer ( 01 January 2024 ) In the evening, they took me and about 15 other women they arrested to another place. They told us we were in an Israeli military detention facility. Every time I moved, I got hit on the head. Every time I heard soldiers’ voices, I was afraid I’d get hit again. They kept cocking their weapons to scare us. Every time I heard that, I recited the “shahadatein” because I was sure they were going to shoot me. Our hands were tied in zip ties the whole time. Nihal al-Ghandur Salah ( 31 December 2023 ) We’ve been here for a month and a half now, and we’re still 32 people in one tent. We’re very cold and have almost no winter clothes. We sit close to each other to keep warm. Some people in the family have no shoes, and every few people share a pair of flip-flops. The crowding is unbearable, and there is absolutely no privacy. It’s always noisy. All of this makes the stress worse. Nur al-Hilu ( 31 December 2023 ) All my dreams are gone. My sisters were killed, my home was bombed. The wedding dresses and my gold jewelry are under the rubble. The Israeli army left me with nothing. No hope for happiness. It took away every sweet thing in my life. Our lives are terrible now. I cry all the time over my sisters, over the situation, over the hopelessness of it all. Nihal a-Najar ( 24 December 2023 ) +1 Muhammad Lubad ( 24 December 2023 ) Manar Lubad-Miqdas ( 24 December 2023 ) On 17 November, we set out on foot at 7:30 A.M. and started walking. At 8:30, we reached the Netzarim checkpoint. The soldiers ordered us to raise our IDs in the air and walk slowly, without turning our heads left or right. There were crowds of people, so I tied my children’s hands to mine with a kaffiyeh so they wouldn’t get lost. The conduct at the checkpoint was degrading. The soldiers forced us to stand for hours, without moving or sitting down. Only at 1:30 P.M. did they allow us to move on and cross the electronic gate at the entrance to the checkpoint. Alaa al-Kurd ( 30 November 2023 ) Taher al-‘Azayzeh ( 30 November 2023 ) Sahar Abu Suliman ( 26 November 2023 ) +1 Rami a-Sheikh Khalil ( 25 November 2023 ) We could barely contact my mother and brother, who stayed behind in a-Shati, because the communication networks weren’t functioning. It was very, very stressful for me. I managed to get them on the phone just once, after dozens of attempts, and spoke with both of them. I heard bombings in the background. I asked them to leave the camp so they wouldn't be killed, but my mother said she couldn't walk and that “Our fate is in God's hands.”  Ghadah Abu Tabikh ( 23 November 2023 ) I was detained like that for 23 days. Those were the worst days of my life, especially at Ofer Prison. I endured humiliation, beatings, shouting, cursing, scolding, hunger, thirst and lack of sleep. I was scared all the time. I was afraid for myself and also for my wife and our children and for my brothers and their families, in Gaza, especially after the interrogator told me my family had been bombed. I thought they were all dead. It was constant uncertainty, and it was very difficult.   Muhammad al-Jamal ( 17 November 2023 ) I’m a general practitioner at the Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip. On Sunday morning, 15 Oct. 2023, an ambulance came to take me to the hospital because it was too dangerous to get there any other way. Before I left, I went into the room where the kids were sleeping and looked at them, without waking them. It was the last time I saw my nine-year-old son Fadel alive. ‘Issam Da’ur ( 15 November 2023 ) ‘Amer Dabur ( 14 November 2023 ) Three days ago, we decided to move to Salah al-Din School in a-Rimal. It was very crowded, so we just sat on the floor. We slept sitting up and stood in line for everything -– to go to the bathroom, fill up water, get food. On 10 Nov., the school came under fire so we moved to the YMCA building. With us here are about 200 other people. There are long lines to use the toilet and shower, and not enough food and water. Hiyam al-Bitar ( 13 November 2023 ) ‘Alaa Abu Zeid ( 13 November 2023 ) Now we’re at a-Shifaa Hospital. A few days ago, the Israeli military shelled the courtyard and people were killed and injured. Then they hit the hospital’s solar panels and the surgical ward. There was massive gunfire around the hospital, and people sheltering here were hit. After that, some of the people who were sheltering here left. The dead bodies stayed in the courtyard and it’s too dangerous to go get them in order to bury them. Bashir Rizeq ( 13 November 2023 ) A Mitsubishi jeep driving about 100 meters ahead of me was hit by a shell and veered right. I pulled over behind it and saw a man get out. I got out of my car and ran over to them. Inside the car, I saw some injured people and a man and a woman who were dead. [...] I drove them to Shuhadaa al-Aqsa Hospital [...] On the way, the woman and the girl blacked out... Thu al-Fiqar Sweirjo ( 04 November 2023 ) Mahmoud Nafez al-’Aidy ( 30 October 2023 ) Children here are getting sick because it’s impossible to maintain hygiene, and maybe because of the poor quality of the water we buy. A lot of people are suffering from stomach aches and diarrhea. Abu al-Majd ( 24 October 2023 ) Muhammad Nabil al-‘Aidy ( 24 October 2023 ) In the morning, in Rafah, I went from bakery to bakery until I found the shortest line. I stood there from 10:00 A.M. to 3:00 P.M. and managed to buy a bag of 30-40 small pitas. I came back exhausted after five hours of standing in line, terrified, hearing bombings all around. Kamal Abu al-Fahem ( 23 October 2023 ) We were given food and water for the first time after about three days. We stand in long lines every day to get two small pitas, half a tin of canned meat and some water for the day. The queues are rough and exhausting. I could barely get us blankets. Muhammad a-Najar ( 23 October 2023 ) I sleep in the yard and my wife and daughters sleep in a room. Some have mattresses and others only blankets on the floor. There are a lot of people in the yard, because there isn’t enough space inside. If it becomes cold and rainy, I don't know where we’ll go. Abu ‘Othman ( 23 October 2023 ) There are about 40,000 people here now. There is no corner without someone in it. Some are in warehouses and others in tents put up in the yard. My family and I made a tent out of blankets, but the sides are open and there is no privacy. Abu ‘Awwad ( 23 October 2023 ) We brought with us four iron rods, which we stuck in the ground and attached blankets to. There are seven of us in a 3 sqm tent. We didn't have anything to lay on the ground, so I went to the market and managed, with difficulty, to buy some blankets for us to sleep on. Muhammad a-Sheikh Khalil ( 23 October 2023 ) I’ve already lost more than 16 relatives in this war - uncles and cousins.  I’m in shock and can’t even cry. I feel emotionally disconnected. I try to put on a brave front for the family, but it’s very difficult. We have no idea how this will end and what will happen to us. These could be our final days. Olfat al-Kurd ( 19 October 2023 ) I went back to the neighborhood the next day to check on our house. It was hard to reach because of the wreckage. The roads were cut off and the entrance to the building was blocked by rubble. I went into the apartment and found a lot of damage. I stood there for a moment and mourned the home we had, but I couldn't linger because I was afraid there would be another strike. I ran in to my neighbors, who were also there checking on their homes. They were all shocked and mourning their ruined apartments. We stood on the street, among the debris, and could smell the smoke from the bombs.  Muhammad Sabah ( 14 October 2023 ) We can’t refrigerate food, so we’re down to one meal a day. The water company said they can’t run the desalination plants without power, so they can’t supply us. The gas is about to run out, too… I don't know what I'll do. Without power, either, we won’t be able to cook. N.‘A., from Deir al-Balah ( 12 October 2023 ) When the hunger gets intolerable, we ask our neighbors for food. If we eat breakfast, we don’t eat for the rest of the day. ‘Udai stays hungry because our kitchen is just empty. There’s no food. I dream of a day when I can provide normal meals to my family, that we can eat at least two meals a day. We also don’t have money for diapers, so I have to ask my friends for them. . Sa’id Nassar ( 02 August 2023 ) After the pandemic, I started selling sandwiches from a cart on the street, every day from 10:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M.. Selling sandwiches for a shekel each bearly makes any money. I want to raise the price, but it’s impossible because of the financial situation in Gaza. It breaks my heart not to be able to give my wife and children a dignified life Dawood al-Buji ( 01 August 2023 ) +2 Rula a-Z’anin ( 23 July 2023 ) When they said we had to evacuate, Tamam went into shock. I quickly packed a bag for the three of us, and we started to push our mother in the wheelchair to the end of the street... then a drone came and launched a missile at the home of Zuheir a-Z’anin, which was a few meters away from our home. After about 25 minutes, an F-16 plane launched a missile, and then there was a really strong explosion.   Rahmah a-Z’anin ( 23 July 2023 ) Hiyam’s legs have been paralyzed ever since she fell from a very high place a few years ago, and her spinal cord was injured. She was treated at the al-Makassed hospital, and they told us there that she needs treatment in Israel or abroad, but we can’t afford it. She can’t move, and she’s incontinent. She needs to use diapers. We can’t afford to buy her an electric wheelchair. It seriously limits her and hinders her at school. It breaks my heart to see her like this, but I don’t have any way to help her.    Arij ‘Abdu ( 18 July 2023 ) Sometimes, I feel like a divorced woman or even a widow. I am lonely, and I dream that my husband and I can do things together, visit family, and even travel just the two of us. I hope that one day, we can all live together in the same home, sit around the same table during Ramadan and holidays, and celebrate together like other families. Samah Abu Musa ( 18 July 2023 ) There’s no real peace, even between wars. By the time we recover from the shock, another one lands on us. One shock follows another. I’ve lost two friends. One was killed in the 2014 war, and the other in the 2021 war. I was so depressed that there were moments when I hoped they’d bomb us too and be done with it. We are tired of this life, and sometimes I feel that death is better. The same war and the same fear every time. Gaza has been completely transformed. The roads, the buildings, nothing is the same as it was, and all the good memories I’d had have disappeared. Rida Sahyoun ( 03 July 2023 ) The fear, anxiety and worries that are with me during wars don’t really go away when they’re over. I stay alert and anxious, waiting for the next escalation... At home, with the kids, I try to switch things up and stay away from the news, watch other things on TV, laugh, joke around, and try to get the children’s minds off the state of war they live in. It’s hard, but I try. Amirah Harurah ( 15 June 2023 ) I was not ready to lose my parents at such a young age. I am not ready to live in a reality where my father and mother are gone... I’m scared my siblings will devolve mentally because of the trauma they experienced. I have grown up by decades all of a sudden. I’ve become mother and father to my sibling, but I’m only a child myself. Menatallah Khaswan ( 14 June 2023 ) I stayed in my parents’ room the entire war, and for four weeks after too. I felt that it was the safest place in the house because it was the only place where the windows didn’t shatter. I would ask my mother and father to bring me food in there, and every time I had to go to the bathroom, I’d ask them to make sure it wasn’t dangerous. When I left the room, I was afraid to pass by the windows and ducked every time I got near them, because I was afraid that shells or bullets would penetrate through them. Hala al-‘Absi ( 12 June 2023 ) When the Israeli army bombs us, there is no safe place in the house. We have no shelters. It’s not safe outside, either. Everyone in the Strip is a target for the Israeli army, which makes no distinction between civilians and combatants at all. They bomb arbitrarily, and I constantly have the feeling that my turn is coming, and they’ll bomb our house over our heads again. When I wake up from the bombs in the middle of the night, I thank God that we are still alive. Mai a-Sheikh Khalil ( 11 June 2023 ) The cancer has already spread all over my body, and I lie in bed at home all day, barely moving... I need these treatments. I have the right to receive them, and I don’t understand why my applications keep getting rejected. I didn’t do anything wrong. All the thoughts have taken a toll on my mental health, and I can’t fall asleep at night anymore... I pray to God that I will get the treatment. Khawlah a-Tum ( 05 June 2023 ) +2 Muhammad Sarsur ( 29 May 2023 ) +7 Ahmad a-Dirawi ( 29 May 2023 ) Alaa al-Fayumi ( 18 May 2023 ) +1 ‘Alaa ‘Adas ( 17 May 2023 ) On Sunday, 7 August 2022, at around 6:00 P.M., while the whole family was sitting in the yard, the power suddenly went out, and then there was an explosion with an intensity that is hard to describe. An Israeli plane bombed our house. Everything filled up with smoke, and a fire broke out. Glass and shards of metal flew in the air in all directions. It was very scary, and we all went into shock. Muhammad Abu Harbid ( 03 April 2023 ) +2 ‘Ula Karim ( 28 March 2023 ) Our home was almost completely destroyed, and it is no longer inhabitable. We will need to rebuild it, but we have not yet received compensation from anyone. Immediately after the bombing, we were forced to split up, because we didn’t have a place where we could live together. I moved between friends’ homes, and my parents, my brother Samir and my sisters moved to live with our aunt in Rafah. Yusef Filfel ( 14 March 2023 ) Sometimes, when there is a flour shortage on the market or when the power cuts off again and again in one day, I get worried that the business will fail, and it really brings me down. We follow the power supply table on the power company’s website and plan the work around it, but sometimes the dough still spoils because of blackouts, and it’s very frustrating. Iman al-Jamal ( 02 March 2023 ) Saedah Shihadah ( 17 December 2022 ) +2 Amjad ’Afanah ( 28 November 2022 ) I dream of being able to give my children pocket money when they go to school. Musa, my youngest, who’s five years old, doesn’t go to kindergarten because we can’t pay tuition. I dream of buying clothes for the children at the market, like other mothers. We all wear clothes we got from friends and neighbors. All our possessions are in bags and cardboard boxes. I dream of having a closet to put all the clothes in. ‘Aliaa al-Bahtiti ( 31 October 2022 ) Sometimes, our power gets cut off. I dream of a constant power supply, at least during the day. It’s very hard at night without electricity too. My little children are very afraid of the dark, and when they get frightened, they scream so much. Muhammad, who can only see silhouettes, has a particularly hard time in the dark. Unfortunately, I can’t afford to buy a generator.  Manal Baker ( 28 September 2022 ) Sometimes, I stand on the beach, look at the big sea and dream big dreams. I dream of being able to live a normal life, without the occupation and this terrible despair.  Sarah Hattab ( 11 September 2022 ) We live in Gaza like in a big prison. We are closed in here with no possibility of exiting and going to other places, even in our homeland. I really hope that one day, I’ll be able to pray at al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and, visit the West Bank, get to know all the cities and villages there. My husband, my children and I don’t have passports. I have no idea how it feels to travel the world.   Wafa Ba’lushah ( 05 September 2022 ) Nihaya Jaradeh ( 04 August 2022 ) Hanan Abu Sa’ ( 05 June 2022 ) took communications and public relations at al-Azhar University in Gaza and graduated in 2007. I was interested in this field and thought I could find a job in it even while still at school, but then I realized that there are no job opportunities for young people in this field either because of the blockade. That dream is gone too. Sa’id Lulu ( 14 November 0222 ) I dream that my husband and I will have jobs that make us a decent living, that we can live in our own house and regularly buy meat and fruits and vegetables, and maybe also purified water. The situation in Gaza is difficult, and it is simply impossible to find a permanent job with a normal salary.   Khitam al-Hamami () ✕ Muhammad Nabil al-‘Aidy ( 24 October 2023 ) Muhammad Nabil al-'Aidy, a 37-year-old father of four from the neighborhood of al-Juneinah in Rafah, described losing three of his children and many relatives when Israel bombed his home on 23 October 2023:  We lived in a three-story building with six apartments. My brothers and their families lived in the other apartments.   On Monday, 23 October 2023, at around 1:30 P.M., I took my son Ahmad (15) to get his hair cut at a barbershop about 150 meters from our house. Everyone is shaving their sons because there isn’t enough water for washing. Suddenly I heard a very loud bombing. At first, even though it was so strong, I thought it was far away. But then I saw a lot of dust and smoke billowing around the house and couldn’t see clearly what was going on there. I quickly ran home and found the building completely destroyed. There was nothing left standing.   I lost three of my children: Rimas (16), Adam (10) and Rinad (9). My wife Asmaa (36) has moderate injuries and is still in hospital. I also lost dozens of people from my extended family, many of them young children, women and babies. My mother was badly injured. There are still people under the rubble. We have no way of knowing if any of them are alive.   I’m still in total shock. I can’t grasp what happened and can’t process it. A three-story building gone in seconds. Since midday yesterday, I’ve been looking for my other relatives under the rubble. Of course, I don’t know who is still alive and who was killed. I’m praying to find survivors. The grief is too much to bear. We can’t take any more people killed, family members or anyone else.  The bombing killed 49 people, at least 20 of them minors, and injured 11. For their names, see the testimony of Muhammad's cousin, Mahmoud Nafez al-’Aidy. Read the testimony of 'Amer Dabur, who family was sheltering in the al-'Aidy building

Residents of the Gaza Strip live in a humanitarian disaster zone. This entirely man-made disaster is a direct result of a policy employed by Israel, which, to this day, continues to dictate what daily life in Gaza looks like. This callous, unjustifiable policy sentences the nearly two million residents of the Gaza Strip to a life of abject poverty in near inhuman conditions no longer seen in the Western world. In testimonies collected by B'Tselem's field researchers, residents of the Gaza Strip describe their lives, the dreams they will not get to realize, the medical conditions they have no way of treating, the ongoing separation from family members and friends outside the Strip, and the unbearable suffering caused by their confinement to the Strip, with no hope for change. Read more >> I picked up my husband and carried him on my back. His body was limp from the injury and very heavy. There was no one to help me, and I had to carry him on my own. I walked for a bit, rested, and then continued. He was still bleeding. We got to my uncle’s house, about 50 meters from ours. [...] Suddenly, I noticed his left hand was shaking badly. I asked if he wanted a massage, but then I saw he was dead. I checked again—I wasn’t mistaken. He died right there, in my arms. ‘Azizah Qishtah ( 27 May 2025 ) [...] the military sent a quadcopter into the house and used a loudspeaker to order us to raise our hands. The quadcopter filmed us. Then soldiers came in and forced us to strip. [...] The soldiers even used [my son] ‘Abdallah as a human shield—they forced him to accompany them as they searched the house and then to tie up the other men. Then they tied him up and arrested him too. [...] they ordered us—just the women, at gunpoint—to walk to southern Gaza along the coastline. [...] We walked for two days. [...] Along the way, we saw dozens of bodies—women, children, men—lying on the beach, with dogs feeding on them. Some of the corpses had disintegrated from the saltwater. Quadcopters hovered overhead the whole time. Firyal Safi ( 26 April 2025 ) On 2 March 2025, the crossings were closed and food imports were banned. Goods gradually disappeared from the market, and now we can’t buy any food and there’s also no aid. [...] The war resumed on 18 March 2025 and we went back to a nightmare of killing, bombing, destruction and displacement. [...] For over six weeks, no food has entered the Gaza Strip. [...] Sometimes I find one or two pitas and that’s all we eat. We go to sleep hungry. We wake up hungry and terrified by bombings and the noise of aircraft. Adham Abu Naser ( 24 April 2025 ) In this brutal war, we’ve endured so much: killing, displacement, destruction, and hunger. But the hunger we’ve experienced in the past two months is on a different scale. The crossings are closed, and no goods are allowed into Gaza. This is another method of warfare the Israeli military uses against civilians in Gaza – starvation. My children beg me to get them meat or eggs, and I have to tell them there is none and I can’t. What crime have my children committed? Why must they starve? ‘Abdallah Shaqurah ( 23 April 2025 ) My youngest, ‘Az a-Din, cried a lot and kept saying, “I’m hungry.” It broke my heart to hear it, and I cried over his situation — but that was the situation for everyone. I explained to him that everyone was hungry and there was nothing I could do. [...] We didn’t get food package coupons because we weren’t living in a tent, so we had to pay insane prices for food. Two of my children, Layan and Mahmoud, came down with viral hepatitis and there was no treatment available. I couldn’t provide them with the healthy nutrition they needed to fight the illness. Hala Sha’sha’ah ( 22 April 2025 ) I was nine months pregnant and weighed only 55 kg because I was eating just one meal a day — lentils, fava beans or falafel. When I went to the hospital to give birth, the doctors couldn’t believe I was pregnant. My baby girl was born weighing only 2 kg due to the lack of food. Anwar Hamad ( 20 April 2025 ) Two months before the war broke out, we renovated the house and bought new furniture for the living room and the children’s bedrooms, to celebrate Najat’s high school graduation and our son’s admission to university. I took out a bank loan to pay for the renovations. About a month ago, we heard from neighbors and acquaintances that our home was completely destroyed. When we found out, it was a black day for all of us. The children cried—they had so many memories and beloved things they left behind. I fell into depression. I felt like I was back to square one, that we have nothing. Khader Abu Diyah ( 25 February 2025 ) On 28 December, the Israeli military bombed the school and two classrooms where people were staying were hit. I went into one of the classrooms and saw about eight dead bodies, body parts, injured people and a lot of blood. Suddenly, I heard crying and saw a little baby, just a few months old. I picked him up and left the classroom. I saw people running in panic and screaming. I didn’t know if his parents were killed or injured. I stood there waiting for someone to come to me, but everyone rushed out of the classroom and passed me by, and no one came up to me. The military ordered everyone at the school to evacuate and go to the southern part of the Gaza Strip immediately. My family and I left the school, taking the unknown baby with us. I decided to call him Hamudah Rasem Nabhan ( 17 February 2025 ) My mother said that the war was over and that she wanted me and my fiancée to get married already. She said she would hold the most beautiful wedding for me. The next day, the occupation shattered all of my dreams, and from happy wishes I went into deep mourning. On Sunday, 16 January 2025, the Israeli military bombed our house directly, and everyone inside was killed: my mother, my brother Tariq, his wife ‘Ula, their three children who survived the previous bombing – Muhammad, Rital and little Ahmad, my sister Shirin, 43, and her two children – ‘Alaa, 10, and Diaa, 8. I had been looking forward so much to going back to Jabalya and reuniting with them after a year apart, to celebrating with them. But the occupation killed that dream, too. It hit me so hard, and all I wanted was to die to escape the pain. 'Amer a-Sultan ( 10 February 2025 ) The children wanted to play next to their father and I let them [...] I heard them laughing and playing. My husband looked up at the sky, at the surveillance planes, and was worried about the level of noise they were making. Suddenly, I heard a huge blast [...] I immediately turned around to look at them, but all I saw was black smoke. I screamed, “My husband and kids!” and ran to them. I found my daughter Raghad covered in blood, lying on her back. I shouted, “Raghad!” Raghad!” I was shocked. Then I found my husband ‘Abdallah. His clothes were like black coal. Then I saw my son Hamzah. His head was covered in blood. [...] They were all dead. Aya Hasunah a-Susi ( 01 February 2025 ) Ahmad Matar ( 22 January 2025 ) I found myself under the rubble. My mother’s sister Nidaa, who was next to me, died right before my eyes. I stayed trapped under the rubble for nearly an hour before they got me out and took me to a neighbor’s house. My father, who was hit by shrapnel all over his body and mostly in the pelvis, came with me. My brother Ahmad was removed from under the rubble before me, half an hour after the bombing. My mother, who got burns on her hand and had shrapnel wounds and bruises all over her body, went with him to the hospital, but she returned after half an hour and told me he had passed away. My little brother, ‘Abd a-Rahman, was injured in his leg, and my uncle had broken ribs and vertebrae in his spine, as well as head wounds that needed stitches. [...] That same day, they pulled the bodies of my maternal uncle, his wife, and my maternal aunts from under the rubble. They were buried shortly after, and I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to them. In the evening, they also got my grandfather’s body out. Shahd Salem ( 22 January 2025 ) I thought my husband and children were just injured, but when I arrived, I found out that my two sons, Suliman and Mustafa, had been killed and were already in the morgue. I was in shock and couldn’t face going to see them. When I asked about my husband and Malak, they told me they were both dead too and their bodies dismembered. My husband’s body stayed in the ambulance for two days, because the ambulance couldn’t reach the hospital until the army withdrew from the area. Asmaa al-Masri ( 19 January 2025 ) Mu’in Abu al-’Eish, A Paramedic ( 18 January 2025 ) We’re freezing cold in the tent and we have no way to heat it, because there’s no electricity and we can’t afford to buy firewood—it's too expensive. We don’t have enough blankets and winter clothes, either. At night, packs of stray dogs wander between the tents, and my children are very scared. Life in the tent was bad enough in the summer. My wife had headaches the whole summer because of the heat, and we suffered from insects and rodents. Bilal a-Raqab ( 12 January 2025 ) During the ceasefire early on in the war, I came back from the market to the school we were staying at, and suddenly saw Muhammad at the school. He arrived through the Netzarim checkpoint. I started screaming loudly, hugged him, and kissed his injured leg. Muhammad held me close and cried. It was a huge surprise. I didn’t know if I would see him again [...] In early April, I lost contact with Muhammad [...] Later, someone told me that he’d been killed. Jamalat Wadi ( 04 January 2025 ) Just before I dozed off, Rana [my wife] nursed ‘Aishah and checked to see she was okay. The baby slept with us.  We woke up at 6:00 A.M. I picked ‘Aishah up and she was like a block of ice, cold and stiff and blue, and her eyes were open. I held her in utter shock. She wasn’t breathing. ‘Adnan al-Qassas ( 31 December 2024 ) Hadil [my wife] woke up early in the morning and went to the bathroom. When she came back to the tent, she checked on the children and found ‘Ali frozen. He wasn’t breathing, and his face was blue. She started screaming and calling me: “Wake up, look at ‘Ali. I found him frozen, with a blue face.” I started screaming and crying and said: ‘Dear God, don’t take him from me.’ ‘Issam Saqer ( 30 December 2024 ) Ahmad al-‘Askari ( 23 October 2024 ) Ahmad Abu Foul ( 17 October 2024 ) The soldiers showed us a path to follow, but snipers were shooting indiscriminately there and my mother was hit in the leg. They also injured another woman and killed two of our neighbors. We carried my mother, and we all found shelter in a storage room that was still standing in a nearby house that was bombed. Bilal and I tore up our shirts and tried to dress her wound to stop the bleeding. Thirteen of us sat there in the storage room all night, listening to the bombings and shelling. Later, we stole into ruined homes nearby to look for food and blankets, but we couldn’t find anything in the rubble. Yaser Abu Rukbeh ( 07 October 2024 ) At the end of December 2023, my brother, Myasarah al-‘Ajouri (30) disappeared. We waited two days, and he still didn’t come. We waited two weeks, but Myasarah didn’t come back. After the army withdrew from the town and people returned, we went to look for him. We didn’t find him at his barbershop, and when we reached the house he rented, we found it had been bombed. We don’t know if he was there. We also searched in hospitals and reported him missing to the Red Cross but have been unable to get any information. Safaa al-Ghandur ( 03 October 2024 ) My nephew Mu’in [10], the sole survivor from his family, cried hysterically when he said goodbye to his mother and siblings. He was shocked and couldn’t believe they were all gone and he was left alone. Mu’in is broken. He keeps asking about his mother and his siblings. He tells me, “My father left us. Then my mother and brothers left me. What did I stay alive for?” I have no words to comfort him. Muamen ‘Awad ( 28 September 2024 ) When I woke up, I found myself buried in a pile of debris and rubble. Right before that, while I was asleep, I dreamt that I was walking and a missile fell on me. In the dream, my father, my wife, my son, my sister, and a mass of people were walking ahead of me. The sky wasn’t like the sky we know. Two people dressed in white stopped me and said, “You’re not going with them.” I stopped, and my wife and son kept walking. A few meters ahead of me, they turned and waved goodbye ‘Ali al-Nweiri ( 21 September 2024 ) On Thursday, 16 November 2023, we made dinner and sat down to eat. My son Mu’in was sleeping in the next room. When we finished eating, I went into the room where Mu’in was sleeping, along with my husband, our son ‘Imad, and my husband’s sister Ilham, 33. We didn’t hear any planes or bombs, but suddenly, the house came crashing down on us. [...] The next day, I was told ‘Imad had been killed. I sat next to Mu’in for four days while he was in intensive care. [...] I lost Mu’in on 20 November 2023. (Jihan Swelem-'Aweidah talked to B'Tselem in August 2024 about losing her little boys in a bombing. On 10 October, she was killed in another bombing). Jihan Swelem-’Aweidah ( 07 August 2024 ) The dog pounced on Muhammad and bit him in the chest. Muhammad was very frightened and started screaming at the dog: “Get away! Get off me! Get away!” The dog didn’t back off. It grabbed Muhammad’s left arm below the shoulder [...] Muhammad was already bleeding heavily from his arm. It was a terrible sight and we couldn’t do anything about it. We tried to shout to the soldiers that we were civilians, that they should get the dog away from Muhammad, that Muhammad had a disability, but they paid no attention to us. [...] Four of them pointed their guns at Muhammad. Another group of soldiers pointed their guns at us and forced us to get down on our knees. They ordered us to shut up. [...] The soldiers counted us and then ordered us to go downstairs. My mother said, “Let me take Muhammad because he’s sick,” but they refused. That was the last time we saw Muhammad. We left him bleeding on the couch. Sarah Bhar ( 20 July 2024 ) 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. Safinaz a-Loh ( 09 June 2024 ) The pediatric ward was full of patients – kids with cancer, hepatitis and many other illnesses. The hallways were crowded with sick and wounded people and the people staying with them. I have no words to describe what went on there. The whole time Nabil was treated in the hospitals in the Gaza Strip, he never got chemotherapy. Aya Kahil ( 03 June 2024 ) A doctor from al-’Awda Hospital called and told us the army had ordered all doctors over the age of 40 to go out to the hospital yard in their underwear. He said that Uncle ‘Adnan went down and was arrested. [...] All we knew was that Uncle ‘Adnan was in Ofer Prison and was being held under the Unlawful Combatants Law. Then, someone who was released from prison told us my uncle was not in the barracks [a nickname for the Sde Teiman facility] but in another detention facility. Then, before it was announced on the news, my father found out Uncle ‘Adnan had died in prison. Ruzan al-Bursh ( 29 May 2024 ) Ahlam a-Taluli ( 27 May 2024 ) I was praying in the shack when a massive explosion shook everything. The shack collapsed, and I felt something hit my back. Salma’s leg was badly injured, and Ahmad was buried under the rubble. Neighbors rushed to pull us out Muhammad and Hassan al-‘Ijleh ( 21 May 2024 ) One day, during the siege on the hospital, my uncle Amir and his children were sitting next to us. His son Karim, 3, was sitting on his lap when suddenly a bullet hit him in the head. He started bleeding, but there was no medical staff there. His mother held him. We bandaged his head with gauze, and then, even though it was dangerous outside, my uncle took him to the UNRWA al-Fakhura clinic. They told him Karim’s condition was very serious and he had to take him to al-Ma’amadani Hospital in Gaza. He didn’t manage to get him there, and at 6:00 P.M., Karim died. Shams Mhanna ( 21 May 2024 ) My daughter Afnan said: “Father. Where’s father? He didn’t wake up!” I shone a flashlight on my husband and saw he’d been hit in the head by shrapnel and was dying. My daughter Shaimaa was also hit in the head, and was semi-conscious. My sister-in-law Iman, 45, was screaming, “My leg! My leg!” When I tried to help her, another tank shell was fired at us and killed my three daughters, Afnan, Duha and Shaimaa, my son Mahmoud, and my nephew, whose name was also Mahmoud, 19. Samia ‘Abd a-Latif ‘Abd a-Ghafur ( 20 May 2024 ) [the] soldiers ordered us on loudspeakers to go out to the street. They ordered the men to stand facing the wall and forced us to strip down to our underwear. There were almost 300 of us there, naked. They forced us to kneel and tied our hands and feet with zip ties. They kept us like that for four hours, cursing us and our mothers all the time. They beat us on our heads and other parts of our body with their guns, and kicked us in the face with their military boots. The kicking made me bleed. Muhammad Shams ( 19 May 2024 ) Until the war, I lived with my husband and our nine children in the Tel a-Za’tar neighborhood in Jabalya Refugee Camp. But after October 7, the camp became a war zone. There were bombings and bodies everywhere. Families were bombed inside their homes, children, old people and women. UNRWA schools that were turned into IDP camps were also bombed. The Israeli army ordered us to move to places that were supposed to be safe and then bombed them. Here, in the northern Gaza Strip, nowhere is safe anymore. Asmahan Mahmoud a-Taluli ( 19 May 2024 ) On 16 November 2023, at around 2:00 A.M., I woke up to the sound of my husband shouting and calling for me. I heard him say that the station had been bombed. I was shocked because I hadn’t heard the explosion. All I could see around me was fire and dust. I could hear voices but couldn’t see anyone. I called out my children’s names. My husband started pulling our son Muhammad out to rescue him. I called for Malak. Then ambulances arrived. I couldn’t walk, so they carried me to an ambulance. While I was in the ambulance, the paramedics told me that my children were fine except for Malak. They told me she had been killed. I cried and screamed. Rabab al-Hito ( 19 May 2024 ) I went into our tent and discovered everyone who was in it had been hurt or killed. My three sisters, Afnan, 16, Shaimaa, 15, Duha, 13, my brother Mahmoud, 16, and my cousin Mahmoud, 19, who tried to call an ambulance earlier - they were all killed. My uncle’s wife was hurt in the leg and her son, Ahmad, 15, was hurt in the right thigh. It was a horrifying scene. It was all I could do to hold it together and not break down there. I couldn’t take care of the wounded because I was afraid they’d shell us again. I had to just abandon them. ‘Abd a-Rahman ‘Abd a-Ghafur ( 12 May 2024 ) The doctors decided to amputate my leg. They said otherwise I would develop sepsis and could die. They also discovered my blood sugar was not balanced, which was probably why I was thirsty all the time. They operated on me again, and when I woke up, I didn’t have a leg. It was a terrible feeling, I can’t describe it. After the amputation, the nurses changed my bandages every day, without anesthesia because there were no anesthetics. I screamed in pain Alaa Rif’at al-Kurd ( 08 May 2024 ) My son Yusef had a curtain wrapped around his neck. He started choking, and I helped him get it off so he could breathe. Karim, Alaa's son, was next to me. His head was covered in blood and he was unconscious. I tried to wake him up. My phone was on me, so I called my mother-in-law and told her the house had been bombed and that we were under the rubble. I wasn’t injured, thank God. I called out to Bushra but didn’t hear her voice. I heard my son Yusef’s voice for a moment, and then I didn’t hear him anymore.  Amal Rif’at al-Kurd ( 08 May 2024 ) My face was blue and my whole body was swollen. I was in very bad pain and felt as if my right hand and leg were cut off. I was taken by ambulance to Abu Yusef a-Najar Hospital in Rafah, and all the way I called for my children and told them my children were under the rubble. When I got to the hospital, I found my brothers there and asked again and again about my children. Everyone told me the children were alive and would be rescued just as I was. Only later that day did they tell me that my husband, my children, my brothers-in-law Shadi and Ousamah, and Ousamah’s family, all were killed. Suhair Dabur ( 03 May 2024 ) Maram was killed about ten days after her baby and was buried without us being able to say goodbye to her. She got married about a year and a half before the war. She was a business management graduate, and she worked in the field. She was a vivacious person, with a sweet temper and a beautiful laugh. When Yumana was born, she was so happy. Madlin Shaqlieh-Sawalhi ( 22 April 2024 ) I felt paralyzed. Later, I found out that I was hit by one bullet in the neck and another in the back. [My sister] Mahasen tried again and again to drag me away. After half an hour, my daughter Malak showed up with a white flag. She also tried to shield me with her body. Then my cousin Fatimah, also came there with a white flag. Hasnaa Abu Hasnah ( 14 April 2024 ) The hospital care was very limited, but thankfully, the birth was easy and I went home the same day. Taymaa was born small, weighing less than three kilos. I had nothing to eat after the birth, and I didn’t have enough milk to breastfeed her. I couldn’t find formula to supplement her diet. I was very afraid for her. Wafaa al-Kurd ‘Issa ( 11 April 2024 ) I grabbed my father by the legs and dragged him with great difficulty out of the line of fire. He was hit by three bullets: one in the chest, one in the stomach, and the third, which caused the worst injury, was in the left hip. His intestines were exposed. I got a clean piece of cloth and put it on the wound. He told me to leave him, as if he knew he was going to die and there was no way to save him. Asmaa Hindi ( 01 April 2024 ) My husband was a vegetable vendor and once in a while he managed to sell some vegetables, and that's how we made a living. On 2 November 2023, my husband went out with his cousin Zaki a-Rifi and some others to try and sell vegetables so we could buy necessities, especially diapers for Maher. I tried to persuade him not to go because I was afraid, there were bombings around us all the time. But he insisted and said they were civilians that weren’t endangering anyone. Zaki came back after 20 minutes, badly injured in his hand, and said my husband was killed. Riham a-Rifi ( 26 March 2024 ) I was taken to an iron cage where I stayed with other female detainees for 11 days. My hands were in zip ties the whole time. We were given very little food. I barely even ate that so I wouldn’t have to go to the bathroom, which was far away and didn’t have a tap. If you were menstruating, you got one pad. In the bathroom, we helped each other. There was no shower, either. There were male and female soldiers around us all the time, and they wouldn’t let us sleep. They would turn on the light, turn on speakers, eat in front of us and swear at us. Nadiah al-Hilu ( 18 March 2024 ) We were taken out of the cage and dragged to a bus, like animals. The bus started driving and the whole way, the female soldiers guarding us wouldn’t let us lift our heads. They swore at us, hit us on our hands and took pictures of us. After some time, the bus stopped. We were taken off it and each asked our name and photographed. A female soldier grabbed us by the head and ordered us to kiss the Israeli flag. Another female soldier bashed my head against the side of the bus. Nabilah Miqdad ( 16 March 2024 ) There are nine of us in the tent, without water, electricity, medications, and almost no food. Life here feels like a disaster. We’re living in the desert, in conditions unfit for human habitation. It’s hard to get potable water or even water for cleaning. There is no way to bathe, and we don’t do laundry either. We’re very cold because we have no warm clothes. There are insects everywhere here - mosquitoes and flies, and reptiles too. We’ve all lost a lot of weight and feel weak and exhausted all the time. We barely sleep at night. Fatimah Baker ( 16 March 2024 ) Relatives told me the Israeli military had invaded a-Zeitoun, where my husband was staying. They said he went to stay with his uncle Samir and that soldiers entered the house and arrested Samir, seven of his sons and my husband. Until yesterday, I hadn't heard any news from Shadi. Then, one of his cousins, Jawad, 17, who was arrested and released yesterday, called me. He told me that on the day of the arrest, the soldiers took all the men out of the house and ordered them to strip, and told all the women to go south. He told me that they tied the hands of all the men behind their backs, blindfolded them with bits of cloth, beat them, and poured cold water on them. Shadi was still injured, and Jawad said the soldiers beat him, too. Hala ‘Obeid ( 14 March 2024 ) I lost my cousins and my neighbor, all of them my friends, just to get some flour and canned goods after months of starving. The hunger here is real and extreme, and we have no other way to get food. We go there and risk our lives because it's the only option, but when you go, you don't know if you'll come back. Now I don't know if I'm capable of going there again. On the other hand, when the flour runs out at home, I won't have any choice, despite the danger Isma’il al-Ghandur ( 12 March 2024 ) I was on the balcony with my two grandchildren, Julia and Majd. The rest of the family were inside, getting ready for lunch. Suddenly, I felt my body flying through the air, and then I fell on the floor. Julia and Majd crashed to the floor, too, and there was dust and debris everywhere. There was a lot of smoke too, and I could smell fire. My shoulder felt dislocated, and I couldn’t move or get up on my feet. Then I started feeling like the building was collapsing underneath me, until the third floor became the first floor. Hanan Saleh ( 07 March 2024 ) We buried Yazan that day in the cemetery here in Rafah. Losing him is terrible. I look at the mattress he slept on until he was hospitalized, and all I can feel is grief and deep sorrow. I always tried to give Yazan everything he needed and take care of him, but the conditions here are so difficult now that I had nothing to give him any more. The deadly hunger here killed him. Sharif al-Kafarneh ( 06 March 2024 ) Alma talks about her family non-stop, about her brothers and sister. She talks about how she saw her brother under the rubble. She keeps asking to go back there to look for her family members under the rubble. We told her there was nothing to go back to. I even took her to a place where you can see the northern Gaza Strip from far away, so she would see the destruction and understand that it’s impossible to go back there right now. Sami al-Hadad ( 02 March 2024 ) We took the rubble off the bodies by hand. We did all the work with our hands and with the help of some light equipment. In the end, we managed to get out the bodies of Muhammad, my wife Islam, my father, my two sisters and my aunt. I did it emotionlessly. I can’t feel anything anymore, and that made it possible for me to get them all out. After that, I buried them next to each other in al-Falujah cemetery in Jabalya R.C. Ahmad Abu Foul ( 01 March 2024 ) Since then, I've been alone in the world. I lost my family. I have no home and no future. I cry every day. I go to sleep alone and wake up lonely and lost. I came back from Turkey a month before the war started because of my family. My mother really wanted me to get married. We hoped the war would end and we’d go back to our lives, but they killed my mother, my father and everyone else in my family. They killed everyone. That's how I became an orphan, alone. My life is black now. I don't think I'll ever get over the trauma. Ibrahim Hasunah ( 29 February 2024 ) I have no family left. We were just starting out as a family. We were happy together. On 13 October, we celebrated our first wedding anniversary. All I have left are our two wedding rings, which I’m keeping. I have no other mementos. All the photos and videos are gone. Our clothes, my wife’s and daughter’s belongings, all gone. My house in Gaza City was completely destroyed by the bombing. It was bombed just one day before I left the city. All my memories with my family are gone forever. Hazem al-Madhun ( 28 February 2024 ) we heard a loud explosion and the roof of the building and its pillars collapsed on us. Everything was dark and full of dust. Hanan was still holding my hand when a block of concrete fell on her, and I couldn’t move. I screamed out to the children and only Ibrahim answered. He said, “Dad, I’m going to die.” I told him to recite the Shahadatain. I shouted for help, hoping someone would hear me and save my wife and children. I called out to Hanan, but she didn’t respond. Shadi Fatayer ( 27 February 2024 ) I haven’t showered in ten days because there isn’t always water and when there is we save it to clean the toilets. A six-liter jug of water, which is not really drinkable, costs five shekels (~ USD 1.4). That’s a lot of money for us. My son Yusef, 17, walks about a kilometer to a place where you can fill up water and waits in line for hours just to fill two jugs for which you have to pay. We use one for drinking, even though it is not clean water, and the other for bathing. The children are still wearing the same clothes they wore when we left home and we don’t have enough water to wash them. Khamis al-A’araj ( 20 February 2024 ) Because of the hunger, my wife can barely nurse our nine-month-old son, Yamen, and baby formula is nowhere to be found either. A little while ago, we managed to buy a kilo of dates for NIS 40 (~ USD X), which has been helping us survive. We live off what we manage to get - a little rice, a little corn we ground, and also barley, which is meant for feeding farm animals. The price of barley has also gone crazy. Now even the barley ran out and people have started grinding bird and rabbit food. But there is not much of that either. There is no food for humans or for animals. Ibrahim al-Ghandur ( 19 February 2024 ) I miss our old life, before the war, without all the bombings and killings. We’re exhausted. We’re broken and have no strength left. In one of the bombings, I lost a lot of people form my family and my parents were spared by luck alone. Now, the military might invade Rafah and force us out again. I don't know where else we can run. We’ve been displaced four times. I don’t know what fate awaits us. Amneh al-Masri ( 18 February 2024 ) Hanan Abu Rabi’ ( 13 February 2024 ) Nasmah al-Jamal ( 11 February 2024 ) I was kept there with my hands in metal handcuffs day and night, and sometimes my legs, too. Sometimes they hung me by one hand and left me like that for three or four hours until I fainted. I couldn’t move the other hand because my shoulder must have been broken from the beatings when the platinum came out [...] I was taken to the interrogation room about 5 or 6 times and asked about my friends and neighbors and whether I had undergone military training. All they gave us to eat was a slice of bread, a cucumber and a small piece of cheese. Now and then we got some tuna fish and a bit of water to drink. ‘Abd al-Qader Tafesh ( 07 February 2024 ) I’ve started having diarrhea and vomiting, and my body has become weak. About a month ago, I started getting stomach aches and swelling, and tingling in different parts of my body. I started throwing up everything I ate, even the water I drank. After this went on for about two weeks, I went to the Kuwaiti hospital here in Rafah. They ran tests and diagnosed me with hepatitis. The doctor said it was due to lack of hygiene and told me to be more careful and also to eat healthy. He said there was no cure and it would go away on its own if I was careful. Ahmad Abu ‘Aydah ( 30 January 2024 ) They put me in a jeep again, with other detainees, and transferred us to a large structure that had a rough floor, like concrete, and a tin roof. The sides were open and it was very, very cold. There were a lot of detainees there. When we got there, they blindfolded us and ordered us to kneel down on our knees. I was held there for 35 days, and all that time we were not allowed to move or speak to each other. We ate and slept with our hands tied and our eyes covered. Muhammad Abu Marsah ( 25 January 2024 ) Every day, the soldiers ordered us to sit on our knees from 5:00 A.M. until the evening. We ate and drank with our hands tied in front of us. If we looked sideways, or even spoke to one another, they would punish us and make us stand with our hands raised for about three hours. On top of that, they didn’t let us go to the bathroom when we asked, and they didn’t always let us pray, either. Mahmoud Abu Qadus ( 23 January 2024 ) The whole way, the children cried from hunger, thirst, and fear at the sight of the bodies in the streets. We walked to a military checkpoint south of a-Zeitun neighborhood, along with a lot of other people who were carrying white flags. When we got to the checkpoint, the soldiers swore at us over loudspeakers: “Go, animals.” We kept walking until the entrance to a-Nuseirat Refugee Camp. I suffered from severe pain in my legs the whole way, because I have a herniated disc and had surgery two months before the war. Rami Riyad Abu Dalfeh ( 20 January 2024 ) I was supposed to go back to Tel Hashomer on 8 October for 30 days of biological treatment, two pills a day, to prevent a relapse, and for a pelvic joint transplant on 10 October. Then came the Hamas attack and the war began. Since then, I haven’t been able to go to the hospital and haven’t received the treatment, because the medication isn’t available in Gaza. I’m very stressed and afraid that the cancer will return. I’m not under observation, not getting my treatment and can’t go to the hospital. Majed a-Satari ( 19 January 2024 ) Maryam Barud ( 19 January 2024 ) They blindfolded me with a piece of cloth and handcuffed me in front with white zip ties.There were six of us girls. One of the girls was in pain. The soldiers asked me to translate what she was saying into English, and I translated that she thought she’d miscarried. One of the soldiers said, ‘Oh my God.’ A doctor came in and covered her with a blanket. She was told to put on shoes, so she wouldn’t be so cold. The soldiers told us to sleep, but it was too cold and we were lying handcuffed on rocks, so we weren’t really able to. A. D., A pharmacy student ( 17 January 2024 ) The shelling grew worse and I was worried about Adham [my son] and Diab [my nephew], so I went out looking for them. On the way, I was hit in the hand by a shot from an Israeli drone. I heard Adham and Diab shouting for help, but there was heavy shelling and I couldn’t reach them, even though they were about five meters away from me. Sami ‘Awwadallah Baker ( 17 January 2024 ) Nidal Sharaf ( 07 January 2024 ) After the war started, my milk dwindled and I could barely nurse Alma anymore. I had to get formula and give her two bottles a day. At first she did okay on the formula, but then we couldn't get that brand anymore, and when we switched brands she didn’t respond well [...] She’s lost weight, she coughs a lot, and has diarrhea and vomits. Sometimes she runs a high fever. Malak Abu al-Kheir (Dabash) ( 05 January 2024 ) A few days ago, I took Wisam to the doctor here in the camp. He prescribed eight rounds of inhalation, one a day. I took Wisam to the European Hospital east of Khan Yunis, and he got one round of inhalation. Then we came back to the IDP camp. I didn’t want to stay there because I was afraid the hospital would be bombed, so he didn’t get the rest of the treatment. Riwaa Miqdad ( 05 January 2024 ) They kept me lying on the ground in our garden for about half an hour. Then they took me like that, naked, to another house in the neighborhood, about 150 meters from my house. They took my photo and gave me a number (058793). Farid ‘Amer ( 01 January 2024 ) In the evening, they took me and about 15 other women they arrested to another place. They told us we were in an Israeli military detention facility. Every time I moved, I got hit on the head. Every time I heard soldiers’ voices, I was afraid I’d get hit again. They kept cocking their weapons to scare us. Every time I heard that, I recited the “shahadatein” because I was sure they were going to shoot me. Our hands were tied in zip ties the whole time. Nihal al-Ghandur Salah ( 31 December 2023 ) We’ve been here for a month and a half now, and we’re still 32 people in one tent. We’re very cold and have almost no winter clothes. We sit close to each other to keep warm. Some people in the family have no shoes, and every few people share a pair of flip-flops. The crowding is unbearable, and there is absolutely no privacy. It’s always noisy. All of this makes the stress worse. Nur al-Hilu ( 31 December 2023 ) All my dreams are gone. My sisters were killed, my home was bombed. The wedding dresses and my gold jewelry are under the rubble. The Israeli army left me with nothing. No hope for happiness. It took away every sweet thing in my life. Our lives are terrible now. I cry all the time over my sisters, over the situation, over the hopelessness of it all. Nihal a-Najar ( 24 December 2023 ) +1 Muhammad Lubad ( 24 December 2023 ) Manar Lubad-Miqdas ( 24 December 2023 ) On 17 November, we set out on foot at 7:30 A.M. and started walking. At 8:30, we reached the Netzarim checkpoint. The soldiers ordered us to raise our IDs in the air and walk slowly, without turning our heads left or right. There were crowds of people, so I tied my children’s hands to mine with a kaffiyeh so they wouldn’t get lost. The conduct at the checkpoint was degrading. The soldiers forced us to stand for hours, without moving or sitting down. Only at 1:30 P.M. did they allow us to move on and cross the electronic gate at the entrance to the checkpoint. Alaa al-Kurd ( 30 November 2023 ) Taher al-‘Azayzeh ( 30 November 2023 ) Sahar Abu Suliman ( 26 November 2023 ) +1 Rami a-Sheikh Khalil ( 25 November 2023 ) We could barely contact my mother and brother, who stayed behind in a-Shati, because the communication networks weren’t functioning. It was very, very stressful for me. I managed to get them on the phone just once, after dozens of attempts, and spoke with both of them. I heard bombings in the background. I asked them to leave the camp so they wouldn't be killed, but my mother said she couldn't walk and that “Our fate is in God's hands.”  Ghadah Abu Tabikh ( 23 November 2023 ) I was detained like that for 23 days. Those were the worst days of my life, especially at Ofer Prison. I endured humiliation, beatings, shouting, cursing, scolding, hunger, thirst and lack of sleep. I was scared all the time. I was afraid for myself and also for my wife and our children and for my brothers and their families, in Gaza, especially after the interrogator told me my family had been bombed. I thought they were all dead. It was constant uncertainty, and it was very difficult.   Muhammad al-Jamal ( 17 November 2023 ) I’m a general practitioner at the Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip. On Sunday morning, 15 Oct. 2023, an ambulance came to take me to the hospital because it was too dangerous to get there any other way. Before I left, I went into the room where the kids were sleeping and looked at them, without waking them. It was the last time I saw my nine-year-old son Fadel alive. ‘Issam Da’ur ( 15 November 2023 ) ‘Amer Dabur ( 14 November 2023 ) Three days ago, we decided to move to Salah al-Din School in a-Rimal. It was very crowded, so we just sat on the floor. We slept sitting up and stood in line for everything -– to go to the bathroom, fill up water, get food. On 10 Nov., the school came under fire so we moved to the YMCA building. With us here are about 200 other people. There are long lines to use the toilet and shower, and not enough food and water. Hiyam al-Bitar ( 13 November 2023 ) ‘Alaa Abu Zeid ( 13 November 2023 ) Now we’re at a-Shifaa Hospital. A few days ago, the Israeli military shelled the courtyard and people were killed and injured. Then they hit the hospital’s solar panels and the surgical ward. There was massive gunfire around the hospital, and people sheltering here were hit. After that, some of the people who were sheltering here left. The dead bodies stayed in the courtyard and it’s too dangerous to go get them in order to bury them. Bashir Rizeq ( 13 November 2023 ) A Mitsubishi jeep driving about 100 meters ahead of me was hit by a shell and veered right. I pulled over behind it and saw a man get out. I got out of my car and ran over to them. Inside the car, I saw some injured people and a man and a woman who were dead. [...] I drove them to Shuhadaa al-Aqsa Hospital [...] On the way, the woman and the girl blacked out... Thu al-Fiqar Sweirjo ( 04 November 2023 ) Mahmoud Nafez al-’Aidy ( 30 October 2023 ) Children here are getting sick because it’s impossible to maintain hygiene, and maybe because of the poor quality of the water we buy. A lot of people are suffering from stomach aches and diarrhea. Abu al-Majd ( 24 October 2023 ) Muhammad Nabil al-‘Aidy ( 24 October 2023 ) In the morning, in Rafah, I went from bakery to bakery until I found the shortest line. I stood there from 10:00 A.M. to 3:00 P.M. and managed to buy a bag of 30-40 small pitas. I came back exhausted after five hours of standing in line, terrified, hearing bombings all around. Kamal Abu al-Fahem ( 23 October 2023 ) We were given food and water for the first time after about three days. We stand in long lines every day to get two small pitas, half a tin of canned meat and some water for the day. The queues are rough and exhausting. I could barely get us blankets. Muhammad a-Najar ( 23 October 2023 ) I sleep in the yard and my wife and daughters sleep in a room. Some have mattresses and others only blankets on the floor. There are a lot of people in the yard, because there isn’t enough space inside. If it becomes cold and rainy, I don't know where we’ll go. Abu ‘Othman ( 23 October 2023 ) There are about 40,000 people here now. There is no corner without someone in it. Some are in warehouses and others in tents put up in the yard. My family and I made a tent out of blankets, but the sides are open and there is no privacy. Abu ‘Awwad ( 23 October 2023 ) We brought with us four iron rods, which we stuck in the ground and attached blankets to. There are seven of us in a 3 sqm tent. We didn't have anything to lay on the ground, so I went to the market and managed, with difficulty, to buy some blankets for us to sleep on. Muhammad a-Sheikh Khalil ( 23 October 2023 ) I’ve already lost more than 16 relatives in this war - uncles and cousins.  I’m in shock and can’t even cry. I feel emotionally disconnected. I try to put on a brave front for the family, but it’s very difficult. We have no idea how this will end and what will happen to us. These could be our final days. Olfat al-Kurd ( 19 October 2023 ) I went back to the neighborhood the next day to check on our house. It was hard to reach because of the wreckage. The roads were cut off and the entrance to the building was blocked by rubble. I went into the apartment and found a lot of damage. I stood there for a moment and mourned the home we had, but I couldn't linger because I was afraid there would be another strike. I ran in to my neighbors, who were also there checking on their homes. They were all shocked and mourning their ruined apartments. We stood on the street, among the debris, and could smell the smoke from the bombs.  Muhammad Sabah ( 14 October 2023 ) We can’t refrigerate food, so we’re down to one meal a day. The water company said they can’t run the desalination plants without power, so they can’t supply us. The gas is about to run out, too… I don't know what I'll do. Without power, either, we won’t be able to cook. N.‘A., from Deir al-Balah ( 12 October 2023 ) When the hunger gets intolerable, we ask our neighbors for food. If we eat breakfast, we don’t eat for the rest of the day. ‘Udai stays hungry because our kitchen is just empty. There’s no food. I dream of a day when I can provide normal meals to my family, that we can eat at least two meals a day. We also don’t have money for diapers, so I have to ask my friends for them. . Sa’id Nassar ( 02 August 2023 ) After the pandemic, I started selling sandwiches from a cart on the street, every day from 10:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M.. Selling sandwiches for a shekel each bearly makes any money. I want to raise the price, but it’s impossible because of the financial situation in Gaza. It breaks my heart not to be able to give my wife and children a dignified life Dawood al-Buji ( 01 August 2023 ) +2 Rula a-Z’anin ( 23 July 2023 ) When they said we had to evacuate, Tamam went into shock. I quickly packed a bag for the three of us, and we started to push our mother in the wheelchair to the end of the street... then a drone came and launched a missile at the home of Zuheir a-Z’anin, which was a few meters away from our home. After about 25 minutes, an F-16 plane launched a missile, and then there was a really strong explosion.   Rahmah a-Z’anin ( 23 July 2023 ) Hiyam’s legs have been paralyzed ever since she fell from a very high place a few years ago, and her spinal cord was injured. She was treated at the al-Makassed hospital, and they told us there that she needs treatment in Israel or abroad, but we can’t afford it. She can’t move, and she’s incontinent. She needs to use diapers. We can’t afford to buy her an electric wheelchair. It seriously limits her and hinders her at school. It breaks my heart to see her like this, but I don’t have any way to help her.    Arij ‘Abdu ( 18 July 2023 ) Sometimes, I feel like a divorced woman or even a widow. I am lonely, and I dream that my husband and I can do things together, visit family, and even travel just the two of us. I hope that one day, we can all live together in the same home, sit around the same table during Ramadan and holidays, and celebrate together like other families. Samah Abu Musa ( 18 July 2023 ) There’s no real peace, even between wars. By the time we recover from the shock, another one lands on us. One shock follows another. I’ve lost two friends. One was killed in the 2014 war, and the other in the 2021 war. I was so depressed that there were moments when I hoped they’d bomb us too and be done with it. We are tired of this life, and sometimes I feel that death is better. The same war and the same fear every time. Gaza has been completely transformed. The roads, the buildings, nothing is the same as it was, and all the good memories I’d had have disappeared. Rida Sahyoun ( 03 July 2023 ) The fear, anxiety and worries that are with me during wars don’t really go away when they’re over. I stay alert and anxious, waiting for the next escalation... At home, with the kids, I try to switch things up and stay away from the news, watch other things on TV, laugh, joke around, and try to get the children’s minds off the state of war they live in. It’s hard, but I try. Amirah Harurah ( 15 June 2023 ) I was not ready to lose my parents at such a young age. I am not ready to live in a reality where my father and mother are gone... I’m scared my siblings will devolve mentally because of the trauma they experienced. I have grown up by decades all of a sudden. I’ve become mother and father to my sibling, but I’m only a child myself. Menatallah Khaswan ( 14 June 2023 ) I stayed in my parents’ room the entire war, and for four weeks after too. I felt that it was the safest place in the house because it was the only place where the windows didn’t shatter. I would ask my mother and father to bring me food in there, and every time I had to go to the bathroom, I’d ask them to make sure it wasn’t dangerous. When I left the room, I was afraid to pass by the windows and ducked every time I got near them, because I was afraid that shells or bullets would penetrate through them. Hala al-‘Absi ( 12 June 2023 ) When the Israeli army bombs us, there is no safe place in the house. We have no shelters. It’s not safe outside, either. Everyone in the Strip is a target for the Israeli army, which makes no distinction between civilians and combatants at all. They bomb arbitrarily, and I constantly have the feeling that my turn is coming, and they’ll bomb our house over our heads again. When I wake up from the bombs in the middle of the night, I thank God that we are still alive. Mai a-Sheikh Khalil ( 11 June 2023 ) The cancer has already spread all over my body, and I lie in bed at home all day, barely moving... I need these treatments. I have the right to receive them, and I don’t understand why my applications keep getting rejected. I didn’t do anything wrong. All the thoughts have taken a toll on my mental health, and I can’t fall asleep at night anymore... I pray to God that I will get the treatment. Khawlah a-Tum ( 05 June 2023 ) +2 Muhammad Sarsur ( 29 May 2023 ) +7 Ahmad a-Dirawi ( 29 May 2023 ) Alaa al-Fayumi ( 18 May 2023 ) +1 ‘Alaa ‘Adas ( 17 May 2023 ) On Sunday, 7 August 2022, at around 6:00 P.M., while the whole family was sitting in the yard, the power suddenly went out, and then there was an explosion with an intensity that is hard to describe. An Israeli plane bombed our house. Everything filled up with smoke, and a fire broke out. Glass and shards of metal flew in the air in all directions. It was very scary, and we all went into shock. Muhammad Abu Harbid ( 03 April 2023 ) +2 ‘Ula Karim ( 28 March 2023 ) Our home was almost completely destroyed, and it is no longer inhabitable. We will need to rebuild it, but we have not yet received compensation from anyone. Immediately after the bombing, we were forced to split up, because we didn’t have a place where we could live together. I moved between friends’ homes, and my parents, my brother Samir and my sisters moved to live with our aunt in Rafah. Yusef Filfel ( 14 March 2023 ) Sometimes, when there is a flour shortage on the market or when the power cuts off again and again in one day, I get worried that the business will fail, and it really brings me down. We follow the power supply table on the power company’s website and plan the work around it, but sometimes the dough still spoils because of blackouts, and it’s very frustrating. Iman al-Jamal ( 02 March 2023 ) Saedah Shihadah ( 17 December 2022 ) +2 Amjad ’Afanah ( 28 November 2022 ) I dream of being able to give my children pocket money when they go to school. Musa, my youngest, who’s five years old, doesn’t go to kindergarten because we can’t pay tuition. I dream of buying clothes for the children at the market, like other mothers. We all wear clothes we got from friends and neighbors. All our possessions are in bags and cardboard boxes. I dream of having a closet to put all the clothes in. ‘Aliaa al-Bahtiti ( 31 October 2022 ) Sometimes, our power gets cut off. I dream of a constant power supply, at least during the day. It’s very hard at night without electricity too. My little children are very afraid of the dark, and when they get frightened, they scream so much. Muhammad, who can only see silhouettes, has a particularly hard time in the dark. Unfortunately, I can’t afford to buy a generator.  Manal Baker ( 28 September 2022 ) Sometimes, I stand on the beach, look at the big sea and dream big dreams. I dream of being able to live a normal life, without the occupation and this terrible despair.  Sarah Hattab ( 11 September 2022 ) We live in Gaza like in a big prison. We are closed in here with no possibility of exiting and going to other places, even in our homeland. I really hope that one day, I’ll be able to pray at al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and, visit the West Bank, get to know all the cities and villages there. My husband, my children and I don’t have passports. I have no idea how it feels to travel the world.   Wafa Ba’lushah ( 05 September 2022 ) Nihaya Jaradeh ( 04 August 2022 ) Hanan Abu Sa’ ( 05 June 2022 ) took communications and public relations at al-Azhar University in Gaza and graduated in 2007. I was interested in this field and thought I could find a job in it even while still at school, but then I realized that there are no job opportunities for young people in this field either because of the blockade. That dream is gone too. Sa’id Lulu ( 14 November 0222 ) I dream that my husband and I will have jobs that make us a decent living, that we can live in our own house and regularly buy meat and fruits and vegetables, and maybe also purified water. The situation in Gaza is difficult, and it is simply impossible to find a permanent job with a normal salary.   Khitam al-Hamami () ✕ Muhammad Nabil al-‘Aidy ( 24 October 2023 ) Muhammad Nabil al-'Aidy, a 37-year-old father of four from the neighborhood of al-Juneinah in Rafah, described losing three of his children and many relatives when Israel bombed his home on 23 October 2023:  We lived in a three-story building with six apartments. My brothers and their families lived in the other apartments.   On Monday, 23 October 2023, at around 1:30 P.M., I took my son Ahmad (15) to get his hair cut at a barbershop about 150 meters from our house. Everyone is shaving their sons because there isn’t enough water for washing. Suddenly I heard a very loud bombing. At first, even though it was so strong, I thought it was far away. But then I saw a lot of dust and smoke billowing around the house and couldn’t see clearly what was going on there. I quickly ran home and found the building completely destroyed. There was nothing left standing.   I lost three of my children: Rimas (16), Adam (10) and Rinad (9). My wife Asmaa (36) has moderate injuries and is still in hospital. I also lost dozens of people from my extended family, many of them young children, women and babies. My mother was badly injured. There are still people under the rubble. We have no way of knowing if any of them are alive.   I’m still in total shock. I can’t grasp what happened and can’t process it. A three-story building gone in seconds. Since midday yesterday, I’ve been looking for my other relatives under the rubble. Of course, I don’t know who is still alive and who was killed. I’m praying to find survivors. The grief is too much to bear. We can’t take any more people killed, family members or anyone else.  The bombing killed 49 people, at least 20 of them minors, and injured 11. For their names, see the testimony of Muhammad's cousin, Mahmoud Nafez al-’Aidy. Read the testimony of 'Amer Dabur, who family was sheltering in the al-'Aidy building