“The tears are frozen in my eyes”

From ‘Issam Da’ur via B’tselem

The Israeli NGO B’tselem has been collecting testimonies from Gaza. Here is just one of the latest, dated 15 November, from ‘Issam Da’ur

I’m a general practitioner at the Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip... In the first week of the war, I basically lived at the ER in the hospital and my mother took care of the kids...

On Sunday, 15 October 2023, I slept at home. In the morning, 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 son alive...

At the hospital, the situation was very bad because dozens of doctors and other workers had fled the bombings to the south. There was a severe shortage of doctors and we were all working double shifts...

That evening, at 8pm, the director of the hospital came over and told me our building had been bombed and people from my family were injured. I started crying. They arranged for an ambulance to take me to a-Shifaa Hospital, where the casualties were taken.

I got to a-Shifaa within half an hour. My cousins... met me there and broke the terrible news that my son was dead....

The next day, 16 October 2023, my brothers and I buried Fadel. I couldn’t bear to look at him. Then we buried my baby nephew, Ahmad Shadi al-Hadad, who was also killed when our house was bombed. He was eight months old...

For two weeks, we lived at my brother Ahmad’s house. We heard bombings and fighter jets nonstop. The bakeries were destroyed and we couldn’t buy bread. In the end, we decided to go to Khan Yunis.

We set out on Saturday, 11 November 2023, around 9am: my parents, my aunt Shadyah, her daughter Lujayn, Ahmad and his wife, my brother Muhammad and his wife along with their two little boys, me and [daughter] Juri. My aunt, the mother of baby Ahmad who was killed, refused to leave.

We reached Salah a-Din Road that leads south... We drove a short way and then the Israeli military didn’t allow cars to go any further. So we left the car behind and continued on a donkey-drawn cart. We went about 500 meters with the cart... then... the soldiers ordered us to get off the cart and continue on foot.

We walked seven kilometres, until we got to al-Bureij Refugee Camp. There, we were picked up by a van from the satellite channel where my brother Ahmad works as a journalist. They drove us to an UNRWA emergency shelter in Khan Yunis... The situation at the UNRWA shelter is very bad. The agency is hardly providing aid, not even mattresses. People formed tents out of wood, cloths and whatever they could find.

Life here is very hard. You have to queue two hours for the toilet, and wait in long lines when they give out water for drinking or washing. Sometimes, you have to queue all day for a bag of pita bread, if they give any out. There’s no medical care and diseases are spreading. The place is suitable for about 10,000 people but there are more than 40,000 people here, and more may come...

I can’t feel anything or express emotions any more. The tears have frozen in my eyes. I spend my time in silence, thinking about my little boy and what he did to deserve to die a week after his birthday on 7 October...

• Voices from Gaza