A 40-year-old widow and mother of seven from Khan Yunis, Samia spoke about being repeatedly displaced with her family on military orders, and about losing her husband, four of her children and other relatives in an Israeli shelling
Up until the war, I lived in our house in the western part of Khan Yunis with my husband, Munir Muhammad ‘Abd al-Ghafur, 52, and our seven children: ‘Abd a-Rahman, 21, Alaa, 18, Afnan, 16, Shaimaa, 15, Duha, 12, Mahmoud, 10 and Muhammad, 7. My husband’s parents, his siblings and their families lived near us.
On the morning of October 7, I heard rocket fire while I was helping the children get ready for school. I understood the situation was dangerous, and I didn’t let them go to school or even leave the house that day. From that moment on, every day became harder than the previous one. There were bombings everywhere. We stayed home.
In late November or early December, after the ceasefire, the situation in Khan Yunis got worse. We were very scared. The army dropped flyers telling us to evacuate the area, and we moved to my family’s house in central Khan Yunis. My husband’s parents and siblings stayed in their homes.
On 7 December 2023, at around 10:00 A.M., the area around our house was bombed, and 34 of our relatives were killed – my father-in-law and mother-in-law, and my brothers-in-law and their families. Only the wives of two of the brothers-in-law survived – Iman ‘Abd al-Ghafur, 50, with her five children, and Iman Mahmoud ‘Abd al-Ghafur, who lost her husband and children.
Most of the bodies are still trapped under the rubble. Bodies and body parts found on the street were properly buried, but what was under the rubble was not recovered.
Then the Israeli army ordered us to evacuate central Khan Yunis too. We left my family’ house and moved to a farm with chicken coops that belongs to our relatives, in the al-Qararah port area west of Khan Yunis. Other relatives of ours were already staying there. We stayed in a greenhouse. My father, ‘Abd a-Latif ‘Abd al-Ghafur, 85, who is confined to a wheelchair due to a stroke, and my brother Samir, 48 and his family were with us. The conditions were very difficult. We had nothing there, no water and no electricity. We lived in terrible fear because the bombings were close to us and we had nowhere safe to go. We didn’t even have money to buy a tent, because tents are very expensive in the Gaza Strip now. The place was infested with insects, and it only had primitive toilets that all the displaced people there shared. There was no way to keep it clean. We lived in that greenhouse for about three months.
On 9 March 2024, the army began razing vegetation near the farm. We didn’t know where to go, so we stayed there. The girls kept crying all the time from fear and worry. That evening, heavy tank shelling began in the area. We all gathered together, me and my family, my father, and my brother and his family. We sat with our heads between our legs.
In the end, we fell asleep. At around 4:00 A.M., I was woken by my daughter Duha screaming: “My leg! My leg! Mother! I’m hurt!” I shone my phone’s flashlight on her legs and saw her right leg was injured and bleeding. I bandaged it with a piece of cloth to stop the bleeding.
My daughter Afnan said: “Father. Where’s father? He didn’t wake up!” I shone a flashlight on my husband and saw he’d been hit in the head by shrapnel and was dying. My daughter Shaimaa was also hit in the head, and was semi-conscious. My sister-in-law Iman, 45, was screaming, “My leg! My leg!” When I tried to help her, another tank shell was fired at us and killed my three daughters, Afnan, Duha and Shaimaa, my son Mahmoud, and my nephew, whose name was also Mahmoud, 19. My brother Samir fell to the ground, and I heard him reciting verses from the Quran. My father called out for help because he was lying on the ground, but I couldn’t pick him up. It was terrifying. Everything filled up with smoke and the smell of blood and death.
An hour later, ambulances came and evacuated the dead and wounded to Shuhada al-Aqsa hospital in the city of Deir al-Balah. I went with them to stay with my son Muhammad, who was injured in the leg. When we got to the hospital, they put all the dead and wounded on the floor and tried to revive whoever they could, but it was no use. They took my husband, my daughters Duha, Afnan and Shaimaa, my son Mahmoud, and five other people from my family who were killed there, to the morgue. My brother Samir was seriously injured and hospitalized.
I said goodbye to my husband and children, and they were taken to the cemetery. I still haven’t recovered, and I can’t believe this happened to us. Three of my children and I were saved from death, but I lost my husband and three four of the children, and I couldn’t do anything for them.
My father is fine, thank God. He’s no longer at the farm. I stayed in the hospital with my son Muhammad, who was hit by shrapnel in the leg, and then I went back and moved with the children to my brother Muhammad’s tent in the al-Mawasi area. We stayed with him for about a month.
After that, I decided I had to get out of Gaza and go to Egypt with the children who survived. We hit rock bottom. It was no life, and I couldn’t stay there any longer. I felt like I was suffocating and that death would be better than staying there.
In April, I managed to get out of Gaza with the children and we went to Egypt. Things are better here, thank God. I’m starting to recover a little, despite all the pain over the loss of my husband and children.
I have nothing left in Gaza except the painful memories. My whole life was destroyed. I pray to God to give me strength to bear the loss of my family. I lost everything within minutes!
We are unarmed civilians. We moved again and again, following the army’s orders, but nowhere in Gaza is safe. All of us, anything that moves, is just a target for the army. Women and children, too. What did I do to them that could justify robbing me of my family? They shelled us when we were displaced people without shelter!
* Testimony given to B’Tselem field researcher Olfat al-Kurd on 20 May 2024
Eleven people were killed in the shelling of the farm where the al-Ghafur family were sheltering on 10 March 2024. These are their names:
Munir ‘Abd al-Ghafur, 52, Samia’s husband, and their children:
Afnan, 16
Shaimaa, 15
Duha, 12
Mahmoud, 10
Mahmoud Samir ‘Abd al-Ghafur, 19, Samia’s nephew
Other relatives:
Sidqi ‘Abd al-Ghafur, 80, and his children:
Najwa Sidqi ‘Abd al-Ghafur, 40
Ahmad Sidqi ‘Abd al-Ghafur, 35, a married father of five, who was injured and died the next day
Ilham Yunes ‘Abd al-Ghafur, 25, a married mother of two young children
Sa’id Faiz al-‘Asuli, 70