Muhammad Shams

70-year-old, a father of ten adult children, from a-Shati R.C in Gaza City, talks about his son Mahmoud (38), who disappeared since his arrest in March

I am a retired Palestinian Authority employee.

From the first day of the war, 7 October 2023, we heard the Israeli bombings and saw unimaginable scenes of killing and total destruction around us and in the media. We stayed home for 34 days, during which these horrors continued, until the occupation army dropped flyers ordering us to leave the camp, claiming it was a combat zone. We had to leave our homes – my sons and their families, and me.

On 10 November 2023, we moved to the southern Gaza Strip via Salah a-Din road. The road was supposed to be a safe corridor, but it was nothing of the sort. Along the way, all we saw outside was dismembered bodies, including women, some of which had fallen prey to animals. Drones circled over our heads and there was gunfire in our direction, too. It a miracle we managed to reach the south in one piece. We went to my son Mahmoud’s house in the Madinat Hamad neighborhood of Khan Yunis. We stayed with him for almost a month and suffered from a lack of food, water and all basic products.

Then the occupation army’s invasion of Khan Yunis started, and they dropped flyers again, telling us to leave town. The army also called us dozens of times to order us to leave. The next day, it bombed nine towers in Khan Yunis, obliterating them. We had no choice but to leave. We headed towards the al-Mawasi area in Rafah, under fire and bombardment. My son, his wife and their children came with us. We lived there, in tents, for two months. Our lives were very, very difficult. We had trouble getting the most essential supplies, and most importantly, there was no water for drinking, bathing or anything else.

At some point, my son decided to go back to the Madinat Hamad neighborhood, after people said the situation there was calm and the occupation army hadn’t reached it. We all went back there with him, his wife and their three children. We lived in his apartment, which was partially destroyed, but it was still better than living and sleeping in a tent in the middle of the street.

On 8 March 2024, at exactly 9:00 P.M., the occupation army bombed a lot of places in the area, and we found ourselves in our homes surrounded by tanks and other military vehicles. There were 12 of us, mostly women and children, and we all hid in the stairwell to protect ourselves from the fire.

Two hours later, rockets were fired at the apartment we were in and half of it was completely destroyed, but God wanted us to come out safely, because we were in the other half of the apartment. There was dust and ashes everywhere, and rubble fell on us. We stayed like that until 7:00 A.M., and then soldiers ordered us on loudspeakers to go out to the street. They ordered the men to stand facing the wall and forced us to strip down to our underwear. There were almost 300 of us there, naked. They forced us to kneel and tied our hands and feet with zip ties. They kept us like that for four hours, cursing us and our mothers all the time. They beat us on our heads and other parts of our body with their guns, and kicked us in the face with their military boots. The kicking made me bleed.

Then they started taking us for questioning, inside the bathrooms of the apartments. They made me sit on the toilet, and then kicked my legs and slammed my head against the wall. Then they asked me where the “muqawamah people” [resistance] were, where there were tunnels, where the weapons were hidden, etc. I told them I didn’t know, and that I was just a civilian living in this city and knew nothing about the tunnels or the resistance.

Then they ordered us to walk with our wives and children to the al-Mawasi area in Rafah, through a crossing they had set up. There were cameras there, and our pictures were taken. On the way, several young men and older men were arrested. They arrested my son Mahmoud, 38, after his picture was taken. They handcuffed and blindfolded him in his underwear, beat him with their guns and kicked him in front of us and in front of his wife Helen and his three small children. Then they took him away; we don’t know where.

We kept walking with his wife and children to the city of Rafah. We received no information about Mahmoud ever since, whether he’s still alive or they killed him. He was arrested on 9 March 2024. It’s been more than 100 days. I’m in touch with various organizations, including the Red Cross, but they don’t have any information about him. We asked released prisoners, too, and they also said they hadn’t heard his name, which only makes us and his wife and children more afraid and stressed.

His children ask about him all the time and keeping hoping their father will return soon. We are all going through the worst days of our lives – both the war and the uncertainty about my son’s fate. We very much hope he’ll come back to us and this suffering will end. Then, we can somehow endure the torment of this war and of daily life, which is difficult as it is.

* Testimony given over the phone to B’Tselem field researcher Muhammad Sabah on 19 June 2024