Jamalat Wadi
4 January 2025
A 44-year-old mother of nine, spoke about losing her son, displacement, and flooding in the Shuhadaa al-Aqsa Hospital IDP camp
At the beginning of the war, about a year and four months ago, we were forced to leave our home in a-Shuja’iyah neighborhood in Gaza – myself, my husband Bahajat, 58, who has a leg disability and has difficulty walking, and our nine children and our grandchildren: Wa’d, 26 (married and the mother of ‘Issam, 2.8, and Kamilya, 1 month old), Khulud, 24, Hala, 21 (mother of Ritaj, 2.7), Shahd, 18, Rawdah, 17, Raghad, 16, Nur, 5, Muhammad, 24 (who was killed on 4 April 2024) and Mahmoud, 20. We all moved to a school that was used as an IDP camp in the Tell al-Hawa neighborhood in western Gaza City. After about five days, the army ordered people in the area to leave and go to the southern Gaza Strip. I was displaced again, to the south, with my family. My son Muhammad, 24, was the only one who didn’t want to go with us, and he stayed with his paternal aunt and her children in the northern Gaza Strip.
We lived for about a month and a half in a tent in the al-Mawasi area of Khan Yunis, but we were forced out of there, too, because of the intensity of the bombings, this time to a school that served as an IDP camp in the western part of the city of Deir al-Balah. The situation at that school was awful. It was terribly overcrowded. At that time, I found out that my son Muhammad had been seriously injured in the right leg and was treated at al-Ma’amadani Hospital and the Indonesian Hospital, where they put a platinum implant in his leg. I contacted the Red Cross and the ambulance headquarters many times and asked them to transfer Muhammad south, to Shuadaa al-Aqsa Hospital, so he could be treated there, but they kept telling me the situation was tough and it was impossible to transfer him.
During the ceasefire early on in the war, I came back from the market to the school we were staying at, and suddenly saw Muhammad at the school. He arrived through the Netzarim checkpoint. I started screaming loudly, hugged him, and kissed his injured leg. Muhammad held me close and cried. It was a huge surprise. I didn’t know if I would see him again. I took him to Shuhadaa al-Aqsa Hospital and after tests, the doctors told him the blood vessels in his leg had been destroyed and were no longer functioning. He was transferred to the European Hospital east of Rafah, and the doctors there decided that his leg needed to be amputated below the knee. Muhammad was hospitalized and treated there for a long time. He had other wounded friends who were also hospitalized there, and friends sheltering shelter there as IDPs. I called him whenever I could, to make sure he was okay.
In early April, I lost contact with Muhammad. I went to the European Hospital to check on him, but couldn’t find him. I felt like I was suffocating. I cried a lot. I had to go back to the school and tell his father and sisters that I didn’t know where he was.
Later, someone told me that he’d been killed. We moved into a tent we set up in the courtyard of Shuhadaa al-Aqsa Hospital, so I would be able identify Muhammad’s body if he really was killed and it was sent there. I followed all the bodies they brought to the hospital and checked them.
We’ve been there ever since, 13 people in a very small tent, in terrible conditions. The tent doesn’t protect us from the heat, the cold, or the bombings. Our tent has been damaged several times, in bombings of the IDP tents. About four months ago, it burned down when a tent near us was bombed. It was a miracle we managed to escape. My daughter Rawdah was injured and burned in the face, and her hair was burned too. My granddaughter Ritaj was injured in the hand. All of our blankets, belongings and supplies burned down with our tent.
I had to set up a new tent, but all I could get was tarps with holes in them. The new tent doesn’t have basic life necessities. Then winter came, and I knew we’d get flooded because of the old torn tarps. I prepared containers to collect rainwater so not everything would get flooded. But still, a few nights ago, when it was very cold and rainy and we couldn’t sleep all night because of the rain and wind, the whole tent got flooded with water, and the blankets, clothes, and mattresses we’d managed to get got soaked. I moved my children and grandchildren to the neighbors’ tents. Our clothes were soaked in water, sand and mud. In the morning, I took them out into the sun, but they still haven’t dried. Our situation in the tent is catastrophic and our life here is very miserable. I have asthma and diabetes, and my husband is sick and unable to do anything. I lost my son; my tent burned down more than once and sank in water; and I’m single-handedly responsible for a family of 13 people.
Now the cold is penetrating our bones. We shiver in the tent day and night. I got some clothes from the neighbors, for my children and grandchildren. My month-old granddaughter Kamilya’s face went blue with cold. I try to keep her as warm as possible in my arms. I wrap my children in blankets and check on them during the night, because I’m worried they will die from the cold.
Our situation is terrible and the aid organizations aren’t helping me. I cry all the time about what we’ve been reduced to, about the cold and rain that penetrate our bones. This is just the beginning of winter. Will the tent flood every time it rains? Will all our blankets and clothes get soaked in water again and again?
I couldn’t get a new tent or tarps. I am now the main breadwinner for the family, and I don’t have money to buy new tarps. This tent is no place to live. Just the opposite. It provides no protection from bombs or from rain. I’m scared of losing the son I have left, my daughters and my grandchildren because of the cold. After all, children have already died here because it was so cold in their tents. I pray to God to protect me and my family, because I couldn’t bear to lose anyone else.
I stand in line for “Taqiya” (food distribution) – our lifeline. But this is a life of fear, humiliation and suffering. We are being slaughtered and annihilated in front of the whole world, and the world does nothing for us. Why is the world silent?
I’d rather die than live this life. I want to die, but I just hope death doesn’t come for my children and grandchildren.
* Testimony given to B’Tselem field researcher Olfat al-Kurd on 4 January 2025