Translated Content:
A 27-year-old mother of two from the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City, she spoke about her nephews, Omar and Maryam, who lost their parents, brothers, grandparents, and grandparents in the bombing of the house where they were sheltering: I am the mother of five-year-old Khader and two-year-old Mohammed. I am now also raising my nine-year-old nephew Omar. He and his sister were the only survivors of the bombing of my uncle's house, where their family had taken shelter. Everyone was killed except them. My parents and siblings lived in western Gaza City. Their area had been subjected to heavy bombing since the first week of the war, and the Israeli army ordered them to evacuate the house. They fled to the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in Gaza, but the intensity of the bombing increased there as well, so they moved between family members' homes, sometimes in the Shati refugee camp and other times in the Faluja area of Jabalia. On October 26, 2023, they arrived at the home of my uncle Ibrahim Labad, who worked as a doctor at Shifa Hospital. Two days later, on October 28, 2023, at around 11:30 PM, the house was bombed exactly as my uncle entered it. It was completely destroyed. The neighbors' house also collapsed. I didn't know anything about this until the next day, when I received a message from Shifa Hospital telling me I had to report to the hospital. When I arrived, I began searching for my family members, believing they had been injured. It was then that I met my cousin, Mohammed Labad (21 years old), and when I asked him about my family, he replied that they had all been martyred. My father, my mother, and my three brothers: Ahmed and Yousef, along with his wife Ghada and their nine-year-old son Hamza, and Mahmoud, along with his wife Walaa and their one-and-a-half-year-old son Osama. My uncle Ibrahim and another cousin, Malek, were also killed. No one knew what happened to Yousef and Ghada's other two children: Omar, Hamza's nine-year-old twin, and three-year-old Maryam. I screamed and cried, calling out my brothers' names, then lost consciousness and fell to the ground. Just as I regained consciousness, my uncle Khalil came. He brought me some of my mother's belongings: her watch, her ring, and her earrings. He told me that this was what they had found and that this was all that was left. I took them and started smelling them and crying. I was hysterical. I cried, I laughed, I shouted, "Bring me my mother's hand. I want to kiss it, hold it." But they were all buried. I didn't see any of them. Then the doctors came and told me they had good news for me. They said that Omar, my nephew Yousef, had survived. I went immediately to see him. He was asleep, so I hugged and kissed him. He asked me where his brother Hamza, his twin, was. I told him, "He was martyred." He asked, "Where are my mother and father?" I told him what had happened, and then he said, "I want to sleep and not wake up." I took Omar from the hospital to the school where I had found shelter with my family. I learned from my uncle Khalil that they hadn't found the body of Maryam, Omar's three-year-old sister, and that they didn't know what had happened to her. Three days later, I received a report from the hospital that Maryam had been found alive and was in Al-Shifa Hospital. Maryam was deaf and couldn't speak. That day, I couldn't get to the hospital, but my uncle's wife, Mai, went to her. She told me that Maryam was injured: a slight fracture in a bone in one of her hands, that they had implanted a plate in one of her legs, and that her other leg was broken. On November 1, 2023, the Israeli army shelled the school we were attending. We went out into the street, and then they shelled the street again. We went to the neighbors and slept there for one night, and then we spent two nights in tents in the courtyard of the Eye Hospital in the Nasr neighborhood. After that, part of the hospital was also shelled, and we all felt suffocated from the dust that flew up. We had no choice but to walk to Al-Shifa Hospital, where I met Maryam. It was very difficult for me to see her in that state, wounded and injured. We stayed there for a week. I took care of Maryam and also of Omar, who had become ill with the flu at the time. At that time, the Israeli army shelled the area around Al-Shifa Hospital and some of the hospital buildings as well. On November 10, 2023, we decided to move south. Maryam stayed with my uncle's wife, Mai, who was supposed to take her to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip. We walked from Al-Shifa Hospital, west of Gaza City, to Salah al-Din Street, east of the city, and from there to the Netzarim checkpoint in the central Gaza Strip. There were Israeli tanks there, and it was very scary for the children and all of us. I saw Omar terrified when he saw the soldiers. After crossing the checkpoint, we drove to Khan Yunis until we arrived at the UNRWA displacement camp at 6:00 PM. There, we met my sisters, Raghda (38 years old) and Hanan (37 years old). When we arrived, I was exhausted. I almost fainted from exhaustion. I began to cry hysterically. The conditions in the displacement camp are very bad. We are staying in a tent. There is no running water, no electricity, and only a little food, mainly canned food. I am very worried about Omar, who is left without his family. My two sisters and I are his new family. He repeatedly asks, "Who will I stay with?" and clings to me and my sisters. When we are not near him, he gets tense. I hug him and take care of him, trying to make him happy, bringing him toys and clothes. Every now and then, he says to me, crying, "I want my father and my mother," and he also asks about his grandparents. Sadness is always in his eyes, and most of the time he sits sadly, staring into space. The army and its planes robbed us of our family, killed them all and orphaned Omar and Maryam. Eleven members of the Lubbad family were killed in the bombing: Muhammad Ahmad Lubbad (65 years old), Manar’s father; Suzan Khalil Lubbad (56 years old), Manar’s mother; their children: Ahmad Muhammad Lubbad (35 years old); Yusuf Muhammad Lubbad (33 years old), and his wife: Ghada Lubbad (29 years old); their son: Hamza Yusuf Lubbad (9 years old); Omar’s twin brother; Mahmoud Muhammad Lubbad (32 years old), and his wife: Walaa Lubbad (29 years old); and their only son: Osama Mahmoud Lubbad (1.5 years old); Ibrahim Ahmad Lubbad (40 years old), Manar’s uncle; Malek Lubbad (17 years old), Manar’s cousin.* This testimony was recorded by B’Tselem field researcher Olfat al-Kurd. On 24.12.23.