Talal Abu Rukbah

An 18-year-old from Jabalya RC, Talal described how his brother was shot and killed right in front of him at an aid distribution center in northern Gaza while trying to get food for their family, which has since been displaced south again

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Until the war, I lived with my parents in the Tal a-Za’tar neighborhood of Jabalya Refugee Camp together with my brother Ahmad, 24, who was killed, 24, my married sister Duha, 22, my sister Marah, 16, my sister Sirin, 10, and my brother ‘Abd a-Nasser, 8. We lived in a building with my uncles and my grandparents.

At the beginning of the war, I was displaced with my family to the southern Gaza Strip. We moved between several places: a-Nuseirat Refugee Camp, Khan Yunis, Rafah and Deir al-Balah. Those were the hardest days of our lives. There were bombings everywhere. We stayed in a tent that we carried from place to place. Food and water were scarce, and it was very hard to endure the summer heat and the winter cold in the tent. When the ceasefire began in January 2025, we went back home. The house had been bombed and badly damaged, but we repaired part of it and lived there throughout the ceasefire.

This past March, the war resumed, more intense and brutal than before. There were bombings around us, and the military ordered us to evacuate Tal a-Za’tar. We stayed home despite the fear and horror, because we had nowhere else to go. But when the bombings intensified in early May, we moved to my sister Duha’s, who was renting a storage space in western Gaza City with her husband. We took only the clothes on our backs and some leftovers of food and flour.

When the food ran out, we couldn’t buy vegetables or canned goods because the price skyrocketed after the crossings were closed and there was a shortage in the markets. We are a large family, 11 people, and we had nothing left to eat. Some nights we went to sleep hungry.

When the Zikim crossing in the north was opened for aid deliveries, we decided to go there to get flour and food packages, even though we knew it was dangerous. I started going there with my brother Ahmad and some friends, and sometimes with my uncle Bilal, 34. We went there every 10-14 days. We risked our lives every time, because soldiers were shooting to kill people: snipers fired at them or tanks ran them over. I saw mutilated bodies, people crushed. There were also robbers. I saw a young man killed by robbers who stabbed him. We, too, were attacked several times by robbers who stole everything Ahmad and I had managed to get.

Every time we went, there were huge crowds. Young men, boys and women went to Zikim under fire, despite the fear and the killing all around, just to get flour. It took us about two hours on foot. When we got there, we waited for the trucks carrying flour and aid to be allowed in. Sometimes they arrived in the evening or at night, and when they passed, people swarmed them under soldiers’ fire. Many people were killed there. Sometimes we hid behind small sand mounds.

Once, a young man was killed right in front of me. He was lying on the ground and raised his head, and he was shot in the chest. Everyone who was killed or injured was left there, because no one could help them. Another time, I passed by a pit and saw inside it human remains devoured by dogs.

Sometimes we came back from Zikim without food or flour, because there were too many people and not enough trucks.

On 10 September 2025, I decided to go to Zikim with Ahmad and with my uncle Bilal. We left my sister’s place and went to where Bilal was staying in a-Shati Refugee Camp. It was 3:00 P.M. and we walked about five kilometers, which took more than an hour. Even before we got there, I heard gunfire and later I learned that five people had been killed. When we arrived, there were no trucks, just crowds waiting. Tanks on the mounds were firing at the people. Some lay on the ground, others hid behind the sand mounds. People were killed and no one could remove the bodies.

Around 5:00 P.M., the three of us moved forward. There were many people, and trucks arrived with flour sacks. Each of us got one. On the way back, Bilal took a path alone and Ahmad and I walked together. The gunfire was heavy and direct. Suddenly Ahmad was hit and fell. I tried to save him. I took off my shirt and pressed it against the wound, but realized he’d died immediately. He was shot directly in the heart. His body was covered in blood. I tried to lift him up alone but couldn’t. I left him and ran to look for Bilal. I found him nearby and told him Ahmad had been killed. We hurried back, picked Ahmad up and carried him a long way over sand mounds, under fire. We found a donkey cart and took him to Hamad Rehabilitation Hospital. The doctors said he was already dead. They wrapped him in a shroud and sent him in an ambulance to a-Shifaa Hospital.

A friend called my father and uncles and told them Ahmad had been killed. My family came to the hospital. They were in shock and wept. My father, mother and siblings collapsed. The hospital refused to keep Ahmad in the refrigerator, because the number of dead was enormous and the stench was unbearable. Night fell and we buried him. We went back home, full of grief and regret, without my brother.

Now we are displaced in western Gaza City. We don’t know where to go. The military is bombing everywhere and issuing evacuation orders for every area, street and house. I am now waiting with my uncles for a ride to the central Gaza Strip. The transport prices are extremely high – it will cost about 1,700 shekels (~USD 508) just for us, with only the clothes on our backs and no tents. We’re heading into the unknown, with no tarps to pitch a tent, no blankets, nothing. Most of the city’s residents are on the streets, fleeing the bombings. The numbers are staggering. People are moving south. In the north there is no drinking water, no bathing water, no living conditions – only death and bombing. Every half hour, houses and compounds come under fire. The situation in western Gaza City is like Judgment Day. The fire from the bombings is devouring everything. It’s indescribable.

We’re about to be displaced and leave Ahmad alone in the north. We don’t know if we will ever return.

* Testimony given to B’Tselem field researcher Olfat al-Kurd on 14 September 2025