Suhair Dabur

A 37-year-old mother of five from Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip, Suhair recounted the day she lost her husband and her five children in an airstrike that killed about 60 people

At the beginning of the war, there was already heavy bombing in our area. I moved with my husband, Mazen Dabur, 43, and our five children, ‘Azzah, 19, Khaled, 17, Mai, 16, Muhammad, 15, and Rahaf, 8, to an UNRWA school in Jabalya Refugee Camp. The school was heavily bombed, too, and a lot of people were killed or injured. Still, we stayed there 10 days, until the Israeli army ordered us to move south.

On 17 October 2023, we moved with my brothers-in-law Shadi and Ousamah and with Ousamah’s family to Rafah. Relatives of ours from the al-‘Aidy family had an empty apartment in a five-story building in the al-Juneinah neighborhood, in which a lot of displaced people were sheltering, from the al-‘Aidy family and from other families. We were 13 people from the Dabur family, mostly women and children.

All 13 of us crowded together in an apartment on the first floor. Things were bad in Rafah, too, and there were a lot of airstrikes. I was very scared. I couldn’t calm down. I kept feeling that something bad was going to happen.

On 29 October 2023, around 12:00 P.M., we were all in the apartment. My husband Mazen was just back from shopping at the market, and I was about to bathe Rahaf. I was just laying out clean clothes for her when suddenly, I found myself under a pile of rubble. I didn’t even hear an explosion.

I opened my eyes under the debris, and everything was dark. My body was covered in rubble. Imagine, all the floors above us were on top of me. I called out to my husband and kids, and then I’m not sure what happened. Maybe I blacked out.

Later, I learned that I was trapped under the rubble for about six hours. When I came to, but was still very dazed, I heard people searching and shouting: ‘Is anyone alive underneath the building?’ The voices got very close to me, and I started shouting and calling out to them. I couldn’t shout loudly with all the rubble on top of me, but they heard me.

They got me out. My face was blue and my whole body was swollen. I was in very bad pain and felt as if my right hand and leg were cut off.

I was taken by ambulance to Abu Yusef a-Najar Hospital in Rafah, and all the way I called for my children and told them my children were under the rubble. When I got to the hospital, I found my brothers there and asked again and again about my children. Everyone told me the children were alive and would be rescued just as I was. Only later that day did they tell me that my husband, my children, my brothers-in-law Shadi and Ousamah, and Ousamah’s family, all were killed.

They got the bodies out one by one. Every day, I had to say goodbye to one of my children. It was horrible. I fainted almost every time they brought one of them. I felt like I was losing my mind. It’s an unimaginable disaster, a nightmare. My children and husband were killed and I was left alone.

I stayed in the hospital for about a week. I had pain in my right hand and leg, and even now, more than half a year later, I struggle to use my right hand. When I was discharged, my brother Muhammad Dabur, 45, took me to the school where he and my mother, Fawzeyeh Dabur, 68, were sheltering. I was in shock. I couldn’t eat or drink and didn’t speak to anyone. I was consumed with grief and crying over my children and husband.

We stayed at the school for about two months. It was a very difficult time. From there, I moved with my mother to stay in a tent with my sister Wardah, 27, and her six children. Wardah’s husband, Muhammad al-Kafarneh, 31, was killed in Jabalya on 9 October 2023.

Now we are still here, nine broken-hearted people in a tent. Our lives are a tragedy, filled with grief over what happened to us.

The conditions here are unbearable. We have to do everything inside the tent: eat, cook and relieve ourselves.

I am in a very bad mental state. I’m exhausted, a kind of fatigue that’s hard to describe. I haven’t slept properly in six months. Since that bombing, whenever I hear noises, loud sounds, and especially bombings, my whole body starts trembling and I feel like my heart stops for a few seconds. The doctor said it’s phonophobia (a type of post-traumatic stress disorder).

The Israeli military took away everything that was dear to me. They killed my family in cold blood, even though we didn’t do anything. We are innocent civilians and weren’t endangering the military in any way.

We had to go to Rafah because of the airstrikes and the military’s orders, but they bombed us here too, for no reason. The military didn’t warn us or order us to get out of the house before they bombed it. They didn’t even fire a warning missile at it. The bombing was a complete surprise.

I lived with my husband for 20 years. I was a mother for 19 years. I feel as if I’ve woken up from a dream, and they’re gone. I can’t grasp what happened to me, losing my whole family in seconds.

The Israeli military didn’t leave me a single one of my children. Everything good in my life died along with them and with my husband. When I see children on the street, I think for a second that they’re mine. I walk along the street going crazy.

I see the women around me looking after their children and I’m the only one alone, without a family. Nothing in the world can replace my husband and children. I spent the month of Ramadan feeling grief-stricken and crying over them.

My husband had colon cancer and was being treated in Egypt. He spent a lot of time in hospitals and wasn’t home much. My daughter ‘Azzah was a second-year chemistry student at university. She wanted to be a doctor. My son Khaled was in high school. When we were displaced, he took his books in a bag to continue studying, because he also wanted to be a doctor. My son Muhammad was an outstanding student and memorized the Quran. My daughter Mai was paralyzed down one side of her body. She was treated in East Jerusalem, and I would go there with her. I always worried a lot about her. Rahaf, my youngest, my beloved Rahaf, always slept next to me when her father was away from the Gaza Strip getting treatment. She was always with me.

Now I’ve lost them all and am all alone in this harsh life. I’ve become a body without a soul. Losing them ruined my life. What sin did I commit against the Israeli military, that they killed my family? I wish I’d been killed with them instead of surviving alone. For me, life is over. Everything is pitch black. I pray to God to have mercy on my husband and children, and on my brother-in-law and his family, may they rest in peace. I’m the only one living here, in torment over their loss.

The airstrike on the house where the Dabur family were sheltering on 29 October 2023 killed 60 people. Suhair Dabur was the only survivor.

* The testimony given over phone by to B’Tselem field researcher Olfat al-Kurd, 3 May 2024

In the bombing of the house where Suhair Dabur's family took refuge on October 29, 2023, about 60 people were killed. Suhair Dabur survived alone.

The members of Suhair Dabur’s family killed:

Mazen Muhammad Khalil Dabur, 43, Suhair’s husband
and their five children:

‘Azzah Mazen Dabur, 19
Khaled Mazen Dabur, 17
Mai Mazen Dabur, 16
Muhammad Mazen Dabur, 15
Rahaf Mazen Dabur, 8

Ousamah Muhammad Khalil Dabur, 38, Suhair’s brother-in-law
his wife, Sumud Suhail Rajeh Abu Harbid, 31
and their children:

Sharif Ousamah Dabur, 10
Ileen Ousamah Dabur, 4
Dana Ousamah Dabur, 8

Shadi Muhammad Khalil Dabur, 48, Suhair’s brother-in-law