Rami Riyad Abu Dalfeh
20 January 2024
A 45-year-old father of six from Gaza City speaks about his family’s displacement due to the war and their living conditions
Until the war, I lived with my wife and our six children, Riyad, 17, Adam, 13, Basimah, 12, Yasmin, 10, Muhammad, 5, and Fares, 2, with my mother in her apartment in a-Sheikh Zayed Towers in the northern Gaza Strip. Now we live in a tent in Deir al-Balah.
We left home on the sixth day of the war. There were heavy bombings in the area, and we also got a phone call from the army telling us that we had to leave. We packed some clothes, got on a horse-drawn cart and rode off, along with my mother and my brothers and sisters, who were staying with us. There were 18 of us. We heard bombardments on the way.
We arrived in the area of a-Shifaa Hospital around midday. It was packed with people. For five days, we slept on the sidewalk outside the hospital, and then we decided to move to Deir al-Balah. We found a car, and my wife and I and the children rode along the sea road. But while we were on the way, the occupation planes started bombing the road. The driver turned around and took us back to Gaza City.
This time, we went to the Rashad a-Shawa Cultural Center, which is close to a-Shifaa Hospital, and settled in there. We stayed there for more than a month, until the occupation tanks invaded the area and reached the police building (a-Jawazat), across from the center. When shelling started behind the center, we escaped along with hundreds of people who were staying there, including women and a lot of children.
We moved inside a-Shifaa Hospital, which was the safest place in Gaza City at the time. On the way to the hospital, we saw at least three cars on fire with people inside. When we went into the hospital, tanks were shelling the maternity building, and a relative of ours was killed there: Samah Abu Thurayah, 22, who was injured and was being treated there. There were a lot of IDPs at the hospital already.
Then the hospital staff told us we had to leave and take Salah a-Din road south to Wadi Gaza. I walked with my wife and children. On the way, we saw bodies lying in the streets. The whole way, the children cried from hunger, thirst, and fear at the sight of the bodies in the streets. We walked to a military checkpoint south of a-Zeitun neighborhood, along with a lot of other people who were carrying white flags. When we got to the checkpoint, the soldiers swore at us over loudspeakers: “Go, animals.” We kept walking until the entrance to a-Nuseirat Refugee Camp. I suffered from severe pain in my legs the whole way, because I have a herniated disc and had surgery two months before the war.
At the entrance to a-Nuseirat R.C., we took a break for half an hour, and people there gave the children water. Then we kept walking, until we reached one of the UNRWA schools on the beach in Deir al-Balah. We got there at sunset, and I was surprised by the huge number of people already in and around the school.
We found a spot on the floor inside the school and stayed the night there. In the morning, we left the building and I set up a tent, donated to us by the Sanabel al-Khairiyah organization, in a 4x3.5-meter spot in a square near Deir al-Balah Refugee Camp. We were very happy when we received the tent and are still living in it, even though conditions here are very difficult, mainly because of the cold and rain. We have two mattresses for all of us, and three thin blankets that aren’t warm enough.
My son Muhammad has epileptic seizures and anemia. He gets treatment in the morning and in the evening, and takes iron and vitamins for the anemia. I have a hard time getting them because when the government pharmacies finally get supplies, they sell out quickly. I can’t afford the prices in the private pharmacies.
Conditions here are very difficult. We only eat canned food and are tired of cold food from cans. Sometimes, I manage to find wood and heat the food, which makes things a little better. The issue of toilets is very tough here too. They’re inside the UNRWA school, about 300 meters from here. That’s especially difficult for my wife and children. We wash our clothes in seawater, because there isn’t enough fresh water. The sewage flows between the tents and diseases are spreading.
* Testimony given to B’Tselem field researcher Khaled al-’Azayzeh on 20 January 2024