The situation was terrifying, day and night. There was bombing and shelling all the time. We hid in the stairwell because it was safer. The electricity and water were cut off, and I used a battery to light up the apartment a bit with LED lights until it ran out, and I had no way to charge it. Every time we heard explosions, the children cried and screamed. It was impossible to sleep. 

After a week, we had to leave. We couldn’t go on living there without water and electricity. We went to my sister’s house in the neighborhood of a-Nasser, even though there was non-stop bombing there, too. It was a ground-floor apartment, and there were 24 of us inside. After 10 days, they bombed a residential tower next door and my sister’s house was damaged. So we had to leave again and find another place. Wherever we went, there was no room. Everything was very crowded and full of people who’d left their homes earlier. 

In the end, we had no choice but to go back to our neighborhood and stay with relatives of my wife’s. Their two-story building had an apartment on each floor, with about 22 people in each one. A week later, on 7 November 2023, at around 8:00 P.M., the building was bombed. It collapsed completely. I was with my sons Mahmoud and Sa’id in the first-floor apartment where the men were. My wife was with the rest of the children and the other women from the family in the second-floor apartment. 

After the bombing, I stayed conscious the whole time. My body was covered in rubble, but my head stayed free. Somehow, I managed to start digging myself out. Then my daughters Rawan, Samar and Hala came to help me. They dug with their hands to get the dust and debris off me. After about 45 minutes, civil defense people and paramedics arrived and got me out from under the rubble. They also got Mahmoud and Sa’id out. The boys were fine, even though they were buried under debris. They moved us to a house nearby and continued the rescue operations. After about an hour, they took Mahmoud, Sa’id, Rawan, Samar, Hala and me in an ambulance to a-Shifaa Hospital. 

In the morning, they extracted the bodies of my wife and my daughters, Layan and Juri. I saw them when they were brought to the hospital. The next day, my wife’s relatives continued working to dig the rest of the family out. They got out the bodies of my children Nur, Muhammad and Farah. They were charred and burnt. I could only identify them by the clothes and shoes they were wearing. I was in shock. I broke down and couldn’t believe what happened to us. 

I was injured in the bombing: a pelvic fracture on the left side, a wound above my right eye and a sprained toe. Two days later, they started bombing around the hospital, so we left again. I was in a wheelchair. We moved to the Holy Family School in a-Nasser neighborhood and stayed there for two days. It was very crowded, and more people kept arriving. But there were bombings there, too. I heard people were killed there, so we decided to move again. We left on foot and headed south. My sister’s son Muhammad, 27, pushed me in the wheelchair. 

The journey was long and full of obstacles. I was in intense pain from my injury. When we reached the Israeli military checkpoint on Salah a-Din Road, near the Netzarim junction, the soldiers called out to us to stop and come closer. Muhammad and I went towards them with our hands in the air. They ordered us to take off our shirts and pants, and we obeyed. Then they asked how I got my injury, and I said the house I was in was bombed. After about 10 minutes, they let us go and we moved on. Meanwhile, my children went ahead with other relatives. We looked for them and found them in Wadi Gaza, where they were waiting for us. From there, we got in a donkey-drawn cart that took us to al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah. 

Now, I’m living in a tent in the hospital courtyard with my children and my nephew Muhammad. Our situation is very bad. I have almost no money, but I buy food because we aren’t given anything here. The people in the tent next to us gave us three blankets, for me and the children to use. We haven’t showered in 20 days and are using wet cloths to clean ourselves as best we can. But we don’t have clean clothes to change into, only the ones we came with. I still haven’t received food or any other aid, except for the blankets from the neighbors. When it rained at night, we froze, and the rainwater seeped into the tent. 

My wife Khulud was a homemaker. Our daughter Nur was in high school, and Muhammad was in ninth grade. He loved sports and was an excellent student. Layan was in sixth grade and was an energetic girl, full of life. She always ran errands for the family. Juri was in fourth grade and loved painting; she loved art in general. Farah was just a baby, one year old, the family’s pampered little one and so beloved. 

* Testimony given to B’Tselem field researcher Khaled al-‘Azayzeh 

The airstrike killed 24 people, at least 12 of them minors. These are their names: 
 

Khulud a-Sheikh Khalil, 43, and five of her children:  

Nur Rami a-Sheikh Khalil, 15  

Muhammad Rami a-Sheikh Khalil, 13 

Layan Rami a-Sheikh Khalil, 11 

Juri Rami a-Sheikh Khalil, 9  

Farah Rami a-Sheikh Khalil, 1 

Four brothers:

Salman ‘Alaa al-Hilu, 25 

Hamed ‘Alaa al-Hilu, 21 

‘Abd a-Razeq ‘Alaa al-Hilu, 16 

Muhammad ‘Alaa al-Hilu, 14 

Yasser As’ad Hasanein, 58 

His wife, Hanadi Sa’id Hasanein, 47, and their six children:  

Muhammad Yasser Hasanein, 26 

Nayef Yasser Hasanein, 22 

Raghad Yasser Hasanein, 20 

Jomanah Yasser Hasanein, 14 

Dana Yasser Hasanein, 13 

As’ad Yasser Hasanein, 11 

Two brothers:

Husam Hasanein Hasanein, 19 

Wasim Hasanein Hasanein, 16 

Feisal Sa’id Hasanein, 37, Rami’s brother-in-law 

Two brothers:

Mahmoud Muhammad Hasanein, 17 

‘Abdallah Muhammad Hasanein, 8 

Mahmoud Ramzi a-Sheikh Khalil, 9