Translated Content:
A 45-year-old father of ten, a resident of the Shujaiya neighborhood in Gaza City, spoke about the bombing of a house he was in with his family, in which he lost his wife and five of his children. Until the war broke out, I was living on the ground floor of a building in the Shujaiya neighborhood with my wife Kholoud (43 years old) and our ten children: Rawan (21 years old), Samar (19 years old), Nour (17 years old), Hala (15 years old), Mohammed (13 years old), Layan (11 years old), Jourie (9 years old), Mahmoud (7 years old), Saeed (5 years old), and Farah (1 year old). My four brothers also lived in the same building with their families, who all left when the war began due to the intense bombing and moved into the homes of relatives or acquaintances. As for us, we decided to stay because we had nowhere else to go. The situation was very scary, day and night. The rocket and missile shelling was constant. We hid in the stairwell because it was safer. The water and electricity were cut off, and I used a battery to light the apartment for a while, until the battery ran out and there was no way to charge it. Whenever we heard the sound of shelling, the children would cry and scream. Sleep was impossible. After a week, we had to leave the apartment because it was impossible to continue without water and electricity. We moved to my sister's house in the Nasr neighborhood, although the shelling there was also constant. There were 24 of us in a ground-floor apartment. About ten days later, they bombed a residential tower next to my sister's house, damaging her apartment. We had to leave there too and look for another place. But all the places we went were overcrowded with people who had been forced to leave their homes earlier. In the end, we had no other choice, so we returned to the Shuja'iyya neighborhood, to the two-story home of my wife's relatives, with one apartment on each floor. There were approximately 22 people in each apartment. A week later, on November 7, 2023, at around 8:00 PM, the building was bombed. The entire building collapsed. At the time, I was with my sons Mahmoud and Saeed in the apartment on the first floor, where the men were, while my wife, the rest of our children, and the other women in the family were in the apartment on the second floor. After the bombing, I was fully conscious. Rubble covered my entire body, except for my head, which remained exposed. I began digging and gradually freeing my body, and then my daughters Rawan, Samar, and Hala came to my aid. They were digging with their hands to remove the dirt and debris from me. After about 45 minutes, a Civil Defense team and paramedics arrived and pulled me out from under the rubble. They also pulled out my sons Mahmoud and Saeed, who emerged unharmed despite being buried under the rubble. They transferred us to a nearby house and continued the rescue operations. After about an hour, they evacuated us in an ambulance to Al-Shifa Hospital – me, Mahmoud, Saeed, Rowan, Samar, and Hala. In the morning, they managed to retrieve the bodies of my wife and my two daughters, Layan and Jourie. I saw them when they brought them to the hospital. The next day, relatives continued trying to rescue the rest of the family. They managed to retrieve the bodies of my children, Nour, Mohammed, and Farah. Their bodies were so burned and charred, I could only recognize them by their clothes and the slippers they were wearing. I was in shock. I completely collapsed and couldn't believe what had happened to us. I had a fracture in my pelvis on the left side, a wound above my right eye, and a bruise on one of my thumbs. Two days later, they started bombing the area around the hospital, so we left in a wheelchair. We then moved to the Holy Family School in the Nasr neighborhood and stayed there for two days. It was very overcrowded, and more and more people were arriving all the time. They bombed there too, and I heard that people had been killed there, so we decided to leave. We left on foot heading south. My nephew, Mohammed, 27, was pushing my wheelchair. The road was long and bumpy, and my wounds hurt a lot. When we reached an Israeli army checkpoint on Salah a-Din Street, near the Netzrim Junction, the soldiers ordered us to stop and approach them. Mohammed and I walked toward them with our hands raised. They ordered each of us to take off our shirts and pants, which we did. They then asked me how I had been injured, and I told them they had bombed the house I was staying in. After about ten minutes, they let us go, and we continued walking. Meanwhile, my children and some relatives had gone ahead of us. We looked for them and found them waiting for us in Wadi Gaza. From there, a donkey cart took us to Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah. Now, my children, Mohammed, and I are staying in a tent in the hospital courtyard. Our situation is very bad. Although I have almost no money, I buy food myself because we don't get anything here. The people living in the neighboring tent gave us three blankets, for me and the children. We haven't showered in 20 days and use wet cloths to clean ourselves as best we can, but we don't have clean clothes to wear after we "wash." We only have the clothes we brought. So far, I haven't received any help—no food or anything else—except blankets from our tent's neighbors. The night it rained, we froze here from the cold, and the rainwater seeped into the tent. My wife, Kholoud, was a housewife. Our daughter, Nour, was a high school student, and Mohammed was in the ninth grade. He loved sports and excelled in his studies. Layan, a sixth-grade student, was full of energy and vitality. She was always the one bringing groceries home. Jourie, a fourth-grade student, loved drawing and art in general. Farah was a one-year-old baby girl who was the family's darling and much-loved. *This testimony was recorded by B'Tselem field researcher Khaled al-'Azayzeh. Twenty-four people, including 12 minors, were killed in the bombing. The following are the names of the dead: Kholoud Al-Sheikh Khalil (43 years old) and five of her children: Nour Rami Al-Sheikh Khalil (15 years old), Muhammad Rami Al-Sheikh Khalil (13 years old), Layan Rami Al-Sheikh Khalil (11 years old), Jouri Rami Al-Sheikh Khalil (9 years old), Farah Rami Al-Sheikh Khalil (1 year old), the four siblings: Salman Alaa Al-Helou (25 years old), Hamed Alaa Al-Helou (21 years old), Abdul Razak Alaa Al-Helou (16 years old), Muhammad Alaa Al-Helou (14 years old), Yasser Asaad Hassanein (58 years old), his wife Hanadi Saeed Hassanein (47 years old), and their six children: Muhammad Yasser Hassanein (26 years old), Nayef Yasser Hassanein (22 years old), Raghad Yasser Hassanein (20 years old), Jumana Yasser Hassanein (14 years old), Dana Yasser Hassanein (13 years old), Asaad Yasser Hassanein (11 years old), the two siblings: Hussam Hassanein Hassanein (19 years old), Waseem Hassanein Hassanein (16 years old), Faisal Saeed Hassanein (37 years old), Rami’s brother-in-law, the two brothers: Mahmoud Muhammad Hassanein (17 years old), Abdullah Muhammad Hassanein (8 years old), Mahmoud Ramzi Al-Sheikh Khalil (9 years old)