Translated Content:
A 48-year-old mother of six, she spoke in a testimony she gave on November 23, 2023, about fleeing the Israeli bombing, her life in a displacement center, and the martyrdom of her mother and brother. I was staying with my husband and two of our six children in an apartment on the seventh floor of the Al-Karama Towers in the northwest of the city. On October 7, 2023, at 10:00 PM, the area was heavily bombed, filling the house with sand and dust. We hid in a back room, which was relatively safe because it was not on the opposite side of the bombing. At the time, my brother-in-law's sons, Abdul (29 years old) and Mohammed (20 years old), were with us. We all hid in that room and stayed there for two days. The next day, the bombing intensified in all directions around our building. We realized that even if we hid in that room, we would not be safe, so we decided to leave. From my experience in previous wars, I had become accustomed to the need to temporarily leave our home and seek safe haven from Israeli bombardment. On October 9, 2023, we left our home and moved to the nearby Shati refugee camp, where relatives lived. We stayed with them for a week—my husband, my mother, and our six children. My mother, Hayat (Abu Lashin) Abu Tabikh (67 years old), my brother Ibrahim Abu Tabikh (42 years old), and his seven children also lived in the Al-Karama area in northwest Gaza. A week after the war began, they too moved to Shati refugee camp, to the home of my sister Duaa (37 years old). I met them twice during our stay in the camp. The situation in Shati camp was also very dangerous. The shelling was constant. At one point, the Israelis bombed a mosque located next to where we were. After much deliberation among us, and after the Israeli army demanded that everyone move south, to the other side of the Gaza Valley, my family, my mother, and my brother Ibrahim's family decided to move to the Khan Yunis area, which was considered relatively safe at the time. Ultimately, my mother and brother changed their minds. We couldn't find a car and there was no public transportation, so they both said they couldn't walk that far. I tried to convince them that the situation was very dangerous, that the residents of Beach Camp now feared for their lives, and that everyone was forced to leave. But they refused. On October 15, 2023, my husband, our children, and I left Beach Camp at 9:00 a.m. Our plan was to reach Salah al-Din Street and continue from there to Khan Yunis. When we reached Asqola Roundabout, after four hours of walking, we sat down to rest. Luckily, we found a car to take us the rest of the way. At 4:00 PM, we arrived at the shelter for displaced people, located near an UNRWA school in Khan Younis. There were thousands of people crammed into a small space. The sheer number of displaced people shocked me, and I didn't know what to do. We searched for a corner to settle in until we found a concrete platform near a staircase. Someone brought us some blankets from inside the UNRWA center at the school. But then an official came and told my husband and sons that this place was for women and children only, and directed them to another site designated for men. This was the arrangement for families who didn't have their own tents. My husband and sons slept on the ground for three days, without mattresses or blankets. Then friends came and brought some materials for us to build a tent for our family. It was a very light tent that blew away with every breeze. After we set up the tent, we also received blankets for my husband and sons. The situation inside the displacement center was catastrophic. There was no potable water and no basic hygiene or sanitation. Everyone drank from a well inside the center without knowing whether it was safe to drink or not. Just to use the bathroom required standing in line for one to two hours. We didn't taste bread for a week. Thank God, some charitable people were there distributing boxes of canned food, but no bread. After a week, people came to the shelter and gave us money to buy food. I went out with my children to the bakery. There was a very long line. After we stood in line for two hours, a building behind the bakery was bombed, so I took my children and we fled without buying bread. My children were sick all the time, suffering from colds and severe intestinal infections due to the poor hygiene conditions. The shelter clinic had no medicine, only painkillers. Even the pharmacies outside didn't have any medicine. Contact with my mother and brother, who remained in Al-Shati refugee camp, was almost completely cut off because the phone network was barely working. This worried me greatly. I was only able to speak to them on the phone once—after dozens of attempts—and I could clearly hear the sounds of shelling on Al-Shati camp in the background. I was truly afraid that something bad might happen to them. I begged them to get out of there so they wouldn't be killed there. But my mother said she couldn't walk and kept repeating, "Whatever God has written for us will happen." After more homes in Al-Shati camp were bombed, the two realized they couldn't stay and moved to the UNRWA school near the camp, hoping it would be safer. However, the shelling intensified around the school as well. On November 4, 2023, my mother, along with my brother and his family, my sister Aisha (32 years old), her husband, and their children, decided to leave. They all crammed themselves into one car that took them to Al-Shifa Hospital, where they found other cars transporting the displaced to the shelter center here in Khan Younis. That same day, my husband called Aisha to check on my mother and brother Ibrahim. As he spoke, I noticed that his eyes had turned red and his voice was choked up, unable to speak. I asked him, "What happened?!" I started screaming, "What happened? Tell me, what happened!" Then he said, his voice choked up, "Your brother and mother were martyred." I felt my soul leave my body. I suffered a nervous breakdown and lost my ability to see and focus. I started screaming, "Oh God! Why did you take my mother and brother? Why did they die and leave me alone? My back is broken by their departure. I cannot live without them!" The lives of Abu Tabikh and Ibrahim Abu Tabikh. Photo courtesy of the family. Later, Aisha told me that while they were traveling south, between Zahraa City and the Nuseirat refugee camp, shells were fired into the street, and shrapnel hit my mother, my brother, and my niece, Sujoud (16 years old), who were sitting in the front seat next to the driver. Shrapnel also hit my nephew, Ahmed (15 years old), in the neck, who was sitting in the back seat. My mother and brother were killed instantly and were evacuated in an ambulance. The wounded were evacuated in civilian cars. My brother's wife had lost her mother and four of her brothers in the shelling of Al-Shati' Camp, and now she had lost her husband as well. The rest of my brother's and sister Aisha's families, who survived the shelling, managed to reach Deir al-Balah, to the home of my sister Ghadir (45 years old). I had six sisters and one brother, and now he was martyred, and I lost him. I also lost my mother, who worried about us so much and always tried to protect us from any harm. Of course, we weren't able to say goodbye to them, as they were buried immediately, as is customary with martyrs. Due to the large number of victims in massacres, they were buried immediately, without waiting for the entire family to attend the burial ceremony. I wish I had been able to kiss my mother and brother before they were buried. I wish I had been able to hug them! My nephew Ahmad (15 years old) was taken to a hospital in the United Arab Emirates for treatment because his injuries were serious. My niece Sujoud, who was sitting next to her father, is still being treated in a hospital in Deir al-Balah, suffering from fractures and a shattered arm. *B'Tselem field researcher Alfat al-Kurd recorded Dhu al-Fiqar Swairjo's testimony about the shelling of the street that killed Ghada Abu Tabikh's mother and brother.