‘Abdallah Hamdan
17 December 2025
A 35-year-old father of five from Beit Hanoun, ‘Abdallah spoke on 17 December 2025 about losing his nine-year-old daughter Hadil when their family’s tent flooded in a-Nasser neighborhood in Gaza City:
My wife Anwar, 28, and I had five children: Hadil, 9, Mariyah, 7, Hamzah, 6, Alaa, 3, and Bayan, two months old. Hadil was born with a genetic syndrome that limited her physical and mental development. Until the war, we lived in Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip. Today we’re living in a-Nasser neighborhood in western Gaza City.
At the beginning of the war, my family and I left our home in Beit Hanoun and moved to a displaced persons’ camp in a school near the Sheikh Zayed Towers area in Beit Lahiya. That day we left home under fire from bombing and tank shelling. Homes in the town were bombed with people inside them. We stayed in that school for two months. There was bombing and destruction everywhere, and hundreds of people were killed and wounded.
On the day tanks advanced towards the school we were staying in, we moved to another school that was turned into a displaced persons’ camp in western Gaza City. I felt we’d be safer in UNRWA schools. We walked because there was no transportation. We left behind the clothes, blankets, food and other belongings we’d brought from home. Even on our way there, we were attacked. There were heavy bombings and live fire.
My wife, the children and I suffered a lot in the school camps, mostly because of the terrible overcrowding and the spread of diseases. A school is meant for teaching. It isn’t built to take in masses of displaced people, and the buildings weren’t prepared for that.
Two months after we moved to western Gaza City, the area was invaded. We fled again, this time to Jabalya Refugee Camp. There, too, we suffered from bombing and killing all around us, and from the hunger, displacement and harsh reality in northern Gaza.
I kept trying to protect my wife and children, so we moved from place to place. Every time we fled, we had to leave without mattresses, blankets or a change of clothes, and walk long distances. Whenever the bombing grew heavier or the military invaded, we quickly moved again. I protected the children as best I could. I didn’t let them wander around the streets or leave the camps we stayed in.
At the beginning of 2025, when the first ceasefire was announced, we went back to our home in Beit Hanoun. About two months later, my wife became pregnant. The conditions at home were hard. The house had been bombed and partially destroyed, so I repaired one room as best I could and covered the openings with tarps and plastic sheets. But the wind blew them off, and rainwater got in through the openings and cracks in the ceiling. It was winter and cold, and we didn’t have warm clothes or enough blankets. We didn’t feel safe, either. I was constantly afraid the ceiling would collapse on us. On top of that, the military kept attacking Beit Hanoun with relentless, heavy fire. During that period, eight people were killed inside their tents or homes by indiscriminate fire.
Then, in March 2025, the war resumed and again we had to move to western Gaza City and live in a tent. We walked from Beit Hanoun to Jabalya, pushing Hadil in a stroller the whole way. After we reached Jabalya, we found transportation to western Gaza City.
Then the period of extreme starvation began. I was dealing with a very hard situation. I had to risk my life and go to aid distribution centers in the north, south and center of the Gaza Strip just to get a little food for my family. I risked my life to get them the bare minimum. One time, I was shot in the right leg by soldiers. I still suffer from that injury and have difficulty walking.
The conditions in Gaza City were brutal. Bombings everywhere, explosions using robots, and leaflets the military dropped from the air ordering us to evacuate and go south. On 8 September 2025, my wife and I decided to move to the town of a-Zawaydah in the central Gaza Strip. She was eight months pregnant and exhausted.
When the ceasefire was announced in early October 2025, we went back to Gaza City. About two weeks later, my wife gave birth to Bayan. We were so happy about her birth and the ceasefire, and that we’d survived the war without anyone in our family being harmed. But we were still afraid the war would resume.
I set up our tent again in a-Nasser neighborhood in western Gaza City. The tent was already worn out and torn. I tried to get a new one, because winter was coming and we didn’t have enough blankets or mattresses, but I couldn’t. Seven of us slept on three mattresses and covered ourselves with four blankets. We also didn’t have enough warm clothes to protect us from the cold. On especially cold and rainy days, I’d stay up all night to make sure the wind didn’t tear down the tent and that rainwater didn’t get inside. But I couldn’t really deal with the rain, wind and cold because I had no means.
On 11 December 2025, a strong storm hit the area. That day I did everything I could to keep water from getting into the tent, and my wife helped me, holding the flimsy tent so it wouldn’t collapse on our children. When we went to sleep that night, Hadil was sleeping at the edge of the tent. The other children were sleeping next to her, and my wife and I beside them. At 3:00 A.M., my wife and I woke up to the loud sound of rain and were shocked to see that water had flooded the entire tent, the blankets, the clothes, the mattresses, everything. Hadil was completely soaked.
I ran to pick up Hadil while my wife started lifting the other children and taking them out of the flooded tent. Her body was very cold and blue, and her lips had gone blue. Our other children were shivering from the cold and couldn’t walk. Their bodies were as cold as ice.
I held Hadil and tried to warm her and wake her up, but nothing helped. I screamed at the top of my lungs, “Hadil! Hadil!” and started running with her without even knowing where I was going. It was a very hard moment. I was in shock. I hugged her and was terrified she would die from the cold. My wife took the other children to the neighbors’ tent, and the neighbors called an ambulance, but it was delayed. When it arrived about half an hour later, Hadil was already gone.
I went with Hadil to a-Shifaa Hospital. The doctors examined her, but she had no pulse. When they told me she was dead, I went into shock. I couldn’t process the news and couldn’t say anything except, “To God we belong and to Him we return.” Then I called my wife and told her Hadil was no longer alive, but she didn’t believe me. When I said again, “Hadil is not with us any more,” she started crying hysterically.
I stayed with Hadil at the hospital. In the morning, after they prepared her for burial, washed her and wrapped her in a shroud, I took her back to my wife at the neighbors’ tent in a-Nasser. My wife, our children and my brothers said goodbye to Hadil, crying and screaming. The moments of farewell were very hard. I never imagined I would lose one of my children.
After Hadil was buried, I went back to the tent with a broken heart. I was overwhelmed with emotions. I felt so sad and defeated, and a sense of terrible injustice. But instead of sitting and mourning my daughter, I had to fix our tent. Now, my wife and I talk about Hadil all the time, remembering how she played with us and with her siblings. Her toys are still in the tent, but she herself is in another world.
My wife is still in shock. She cries all day, and I try as best I can to comfort her and support her. I pray that our tent won’t flood again. That’s all I ask, that we don’t lose another one of our children. After two years of wandering, this tent isn’t fit for living even in good weather. It’s all torn and doesn’t protect us from anything.
I pray to God to give us strength to bear the loss of our daughter Hadil, to free us from this suffering and put an end to the tragedy unfolding here since the war began, to protect my children and envelope my daughter Hadil in His mercy.
* Testimony given to B’Tselem field researcher Olfat al-Kurd on 17 December 2025