A 59-year-old father of seven from Jabalya RC, Abu al-’Eish recounted the attacks on Al-Awda Hospital where he worked, the shelling of an ambulance in which he was driving patients to Kamal Adwan Hospital on 18 October 2024, and being displaced to a-Shati RC
I’m a paramedic at Al-Awda Hospital in Jabalya and provide first aid and evacuations in the northern Gaza Strip. At the start of the war, my family was displaced from Jabalya Refugee Camp to my daughter's house in a-Shati Refugee Camp, west of Gaza City. I remained in Jabalya and continued my work.
Since the beginning of the war, we haven’t stopped working. Al-Awda Hospital usually receives relatively simple cases and provides basic medical care. We transfer people who need more complex treatment to other hospitals in northern Gaza. We transferred injured children, women in labor whose babies were likely to need incubators, and other cases to Kamal Adwan Hospital and the Indonesian Hospital. We leave most of the fieldwork to the Palestinian Red Crescent, but when someone is injured or needs treatment close to us, we evacuate them.
On 18 December 2023, the Israeli military surrounded Al-Awda Hospital and arrested several doctors and staff members: the hospital director, Dr. Ahmad Mhanna, ambulance driver Khaled Abu Sa’dah, personnel and security manager Iyad Abu Sharkh, and the nurse Ibrahim Fuda. They are all still being held by Israel. The military also arrested several patients, but I don’t have their names.
The siege on the hospital lasted about 20 days. During that time, the Israelis fire live shots at us and shelled the hospital several times. One of the attacks occurred soon after the siege began. The Israelis fired a shell at the third floor of the hospital, where the Doctors Without Borders office was located, killing three doctors: Mahmoud Abu Najilah, Ziad a-Tatari and Ahmad a-Sahar.
Another attack, by snipers, killed four people: Ashraf Abu Dgheim, a volunteer paramedic, Muhammad Abu ‘Okal, a maintenance worker, ‘Ayidah Abu Naser, a maintenance worker, and a civilian who was living in a displaced persons’ tent near the hospital. The sniper shot him between the tents and the hospital, and his body stayed there for two days until his family managed to take it to be buried.
In May 2024, the military invaded the camp and besieged the hospital again. This time, the siege lasted five days. Those were some of the hardest days we’ve been through. The soldiers came into the hospital, searched us, filmed us, took our IDs to check them, and ordered us to leave the hospital waving a white flag. Before we left, they lined us up in front of cameras and ordered us to take our clothes off. They filmed us undressing, while asking us: "What’s your name, what do you do, who is inside the hospital?" They left some of the wounded people and some medical staff in the hospital to take care of them. All the ambulances were hit by live fire or artillery shells.
We left the hospital and walked, as they ordered us, to the al-Falujah area in the western part of the camp. They told us the soldiers who in tanks along the way knew the soldiers had made us leave the hospital.
I only went back to work in the hospital after the military activity in Jabalya was over.
On 6 October 2024, the military invaded northern Gaza City. During the invasion, they bombed a residential block housing several families near the hospital. The bombing killed 24 people killed and injured many others. We brought the bodies to the hospital yard to bury them there, but the tight siege made it too dangerous. We kept the bodies away from dogs and cats until we were able to transfer them to Kamal Adwan Hospital. We arranged it with the management there, and then one of my colleagues and I put the bodies in two vehicles and took them there. The hospital staff found a place to bury them in the market area in Beit Lahiya.
We took another route back to Al-Awda, thinking it would be safer. But on the way, we ran into tanks and sand berms and it was very dangerous. We barely made it back. That day, I decided not to leave the hospital again because it was so dangerous outside. All the streets were blocked, the tanks were close to us and we were exposed to shooting.
On 19 October 2024, several patients at the hospital required further treatment at other hospitals, including a woman who had just given birth and her baby who had to be transferred along with the person escorting her to Kamal Adwan Hospital (less than a kilometer away). The hospital director asked me to take them, but I refused because I thought it was too dangerous. I told him I would only go if it was coordinated with the military, but said, "I asked an ambulance driver who came from Kamal Adwan Hospital and he said the way was clear, that you could say the situation was reasonable.” He also told me that saving lives was the most important thing.
I brought the ambulance. There were three ambulances, and the hospital staff decided who would be transferred and put a group of patients and injured people in each ambulance. My ambulance had nine people: a woman and her daughter, an injured boy with his father, a woman and a baby, and the woman who had just given birth with her baby and their escort. Each of the other two ambulances carried seven or eight wounded people.
I put on a vest and helmet and we left the hospital around 3:30 P.M., with one ambulance ahead of me and another behind. When we were close to Kamal Adwan Hospital, the military suddenly fired a shell that hit the rear of my ambulance. There was a huge explosion and it felt like the ambulance flew up in the air. My ears were ringing and I felt like I’d lost my hearing. I started checking my body to see if I was hurt or bleeding anywhere. Everyone in the ambulance was screaming.
I got out to check on the people I was driving. I found one of the women dying, literally drawing her last breaths. There was nothing I could do for her. The two other ambulances fled the scene. They thought we were all killed, because the shell hit our ambulance directly.
Then they started shooting at us heavily, so I ran away with the injured boy and his father and one of the women and her daughter. We hid inside some warehouse. The other woman and her daughter ran toward Kamal Adwan Hospital. The two other women and the baby stayed inside the ambulance.
I called the other drivers from the warehouse and told them I was okay. After 15 minutes, two ambulances arrived but as soon as they got there, the Israelis fired a shell at them, too. Thank God, they survived. One of the ambulances drove off and I put the wounded people into the other ambulance along with the paramedic who was with me. But we didn’t have time to transfer everyone and had to run away. The women and the baby stayed inside the damaged ambulance.
When we arrived at Kamal Adwan Hospital, I told the doctors and staff what happened and told them I’d left the two women and the baby in the ambulance. They contacted the Red Cross, but they said nothing could be done.
Later, a man who passed by the area where the ambulance was shelled arrived at the hospital. He told us he’d heard a baby crying inside the ambulance. That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about the baby, that I had to get to him and save him, but I was afraid for myself and my colleagues.
The next morning, 20 October 2024, around 2:30 A.M., the hospital received a report about the bombing of the al-Bura’i family’s house in Jabalya RC, near where we left the ambulance. We set out in ambulances for the al-Bura’i family’s house. When we got there, we found two people injured and two or three dead. We took them away in the ambulance, and on our way back, we stopped near the ambulance.
I found the baby crying inside the ambulance. The body of one of the women was there, and the body of the other woman was outside. Dogs had torn them both apart, but the baby somehow survived.
We took the baby and the bodies and drove to Kamal Adwan Hospital. The baby was put in the NICU and was in good health. By God’s grace, the dogs didn’t get to him. We notified his family.
We stayed stuck at Kamal Adwan Hospital. We couldn’t get back to Al-Awda because it was too difficult and dangerous, and quadcopters (UAVs) were shooting at everything that moved. A few days later, on 27 December 2024, the military invaded Kamal Adwan Hospital and arrested Dr. Husam Abu Safiyah. Quadcopters called out to everyone in the hospital to go to the yard, women and men separately.
They ordered Dr. Husam Abu Safiyah to get all the medical staff and paramedics out of the hospital, but he refused because there were wounded and sick patients in the hospital who needed their care. Then the Israelis said that only the women in the staff could stay, but the men had to leave.
The military ordered us to take off our clothes, except our underwear, and walk to the military camp in the eastern part of Jabalya RC. There were about 30 to 50 of us and we walked like that. They didn’t allow us to get dressed again. When we arrived, the soldiers told us, "Put down your clothes and go over to the camera in groups of five."
They arrested some of the people and made the other, including me, sit next to a military jeep. After they finished filming and checking everyone, one of the officers told us: "Take your clothes and go to Salah a-Din Street, and from there go west toward Gaza." One soldier refused to give us back our clothes. I told him the officer had said to take our clothes, and then the soldier pointed his weapon at my head.
We were all forced to leave our clothes, IDs, money, phones and documents behind and walk away. On the way, we found clothes people had left behind. I found a shirt and women's pants, and that’s what I wore.
Later, we got onto a donkey-drawn cart and reached the al-Qaram junction east of the town of Jabalya. Ambulances were waiting for us there. They brought us food, water and clothes. From there, they took me to a-Shati RC, to join my family at my daughter’s house.
I’m still working. We’ve opened centers and service points for providing medical care, but without ambulances. There’s only one ambulance and we use it to transport medicines and supplies to the hospitals.
The other paramedics who were with me when the ambulance was shelled are fine and are still working.
* Testimony given to B'Tselem field researcher Olfat al-Kurd on 18 January 2025