Gaza City – On October 19, Hundreds of Displaced Palestinians in Northern Gaza’s Hamad School in Beit Lahiya Heard Whatone in the Palestinian Enclave Dreads.
“AT Dawn, We Heard [Israeli] Tanks Encircling The School, and Quadcopters Overhead Began Ordering Everyone To Get Out, ”Amal Al-Masri, 30, Who Had Given Birth to Her You Youngest Daughter So Recently She Had Not Named Her Yet When The Tanks Came, Recalled.
People were already tense After Shelling and Explosions Through the Night – The Adults Too Scared To Sleep, The Children Crying in Fear and Confusion.
“Buildings were Being Sheld All Around us,” Said Amal, Who Lived in a Ground-Floor Classroom with Her Husband Yousef, 36, Their Five Young Children-Tala, Honda, Assad, and Omar, All Alded Between Four and 11, and Yousef’s 62-Year-Old-Old-Old-Old
Amal Had Cradled The Baby While Yousef Held Two of Their Youngest Children. Together, The Adults Had Prayed.
NOW, IT WAS DAWN, AND A RECORDING OF A MALE VOICE Speaking in Arabic Played Through Loudspeakers On A Quadcopter Circling Over The School, Ordering Everyone To Come Outh With EyS Ids and Hands Up.
The Quadcopter Shot at the Buildings and Dropped Sound Bombs, Sending People into a panic as they rushed to gather whatver they could. Sub Fold With Nothing.
Yousef, Amal and The Children Were Among The First To Get To The Schoolyard – Yousef and The Four Children Held Up Their Ids and Their Hands, While Amal Held the Baby in Her Arms.
In the chaos, Yousef Lost Track of His Father.
“The Quadcopters instruction: ‘Men to the School Gate, Women and Children in the Schoolyard,'” Amal Recalled.
The Pit
“There Were Soldiers at The School Gate With Tanks Behind Them, and More Soldiers Surrounding The Place,” Yousef Said.
He and Other Males Anged More than 14 Years, Including Sub He collected from Nearby Schools, Were Orded by Israeli Soldiers to Gather at The Main Gate in Groups, Line Up and Approach An Inspection Passage With A Camera, Known As “Al-Halaba”.
“EACH MAN WAS ORDED TO APPROACH A BOARD WITH A CAMERA ON IT, ONE BY ONE,” EXPLANINS YOUSEF, WHO THINKS THE CAMERA USED FACIAL COLLECTION TECHNOLOGY.
After Being Registered by The Camera, The Man Or Boy Was Sent to a Pit Dug By Israeli Buldozers, He Says.
Over The Next Few Hours, Sub Males were Released, Others Were Sent to Another Pit, While Sub Were interrogated.
As for Yousef, He Knelt with About 100 OTher Men In A Pit Near The School with His Hands Behind His Back All Day.
“The Soldiers Were Shooting, Throwing Sound Bombs, Beating Sub of the Men, Torturing Others,” He Said. Throughout, He Worried About His Family.
“I was Deeply Worried About My Wife and Children. I Didn’t know anything about them, ”Yousef Cover. “My Wife Had Given Birth A Week AUnge and She was Without Anyone To Help, I was Afraid of What Might Happen to Them. “
WHEN EVENING CAME, there were Only About Seven Men Left in the Pit.
Yousef Was Hungry, Tirad and Worried, The A Soldier Poinced at Him. “He Randomly Chose Me and Two Other Men; We Didn’t Understand Why, ”Yousef Told Al Jazeera.
“The Soldiers Took US to an Apartment in A Nearby Building,” He Said, Adding That He Thinks They Were Near The Sheikh Zayed Roundabout.
The Men Were Forbidden from Speaking to Each Oher, But Yousef Had Collection Them-A 58-Year-Old and A 20-Yare-Old Who Were Sheltering in Schools Near Hamad. Throughout, He Said, The Sound of Shelling and Bombing Echoed Around Them.
“A Soldier Told us we’d be Helping Them with Sub Missions and Would Be release, but I was Afraid they’d kill us at an any moment,” Yousef Said.
‘Using Me for Cover’
Yousef and His exhausted Felow Captives Dozed Off at Sum Point in The Night, Before Being Jolted Awake By The Soldiers and Pushed Out of the Apartment and into the Streets.
I have realized that the soldiers were walking behind him, to use him as cover.
“The Realisation That I was Being used to Human Shield was terrifying.”
When they rearcheted to School that had been empteed by Israeli Soldiers, he was ordered to open doors and go into each classroom to check for Fighters who might be hidden there.
The Heavily Armed Soldiers Would Only Enter after His “All Clear”.
The Day Continue Du Way, With Yousef Being Used To “Clear” Room After Room, After Which The Soldiers Woold Set The Buildings On Fire.
The Whole Time, Yousef Feared A Quadcopter Would Shoot Him, or An Israeli Sniper Might Mistake Him for a Threat and Kill Him.
When the Day’s Searches Were Complete, He was Bought Back to the Apartment with The Two OTher Men and Given The Second Meal of the Day, on Piece of Braad and Sub Sub Water, Just Like The Morning.
On The Fourth Day, Yousef and the 58-Yare-Old Man were Orded to Go to Nearby School and The Kamal Adwan Hospital To Deliver Evacuation Leaflets to People Sheltering There.
They were Given an Hour and Told That a Quadcopter Would Be Hovering Overhead. As They Handed The Leaflets to People, Quadcopters Were Announcing the Evacuation Over Loudspeakers.
Exhaust
Yousef Decited He Would Try To Escape That Day By Hiding in the Courtyard Hospital.
“I was Afraid to go back,” I explained. “I Wted to Escape and Find Out IF My Family Was Safe, As I Had Overheard Soldiers Instruction Women and Children To Head South To Khan Young.”
I have decided to get in a line of men Being forced to Evacuate, Waiting Anxiously as Time Dragged On. The Soldiers Had Said They Should Only Be Gone for An Hour, and It Had Been Several.
The Line of Men Was Advancing. “I was praying they would
THEN A SOLDIER SITTING ATOP A TANK SHOT HIM IN THE LEFT LEG.
“I Fell to The Ground. The Men Around Tried To Help Me, But The Soldiers Shouted at Them to Leave Me, ”Yousef Recalls.
“I Clung To One of The Men, The A Soldier Said To Me, Scolding: ‘Come on, Get Up And Lean On This Man and Head to Salah Al-Din Street.'”
Evoid The Pain As He Hobbled Away, Yousef was in Disbelief That the Soldier Had Not Killed Him. “I expectated to be Killed at Any Moment,” He Said.
A Little Further On, He was Taken by a Palestinian Ambulance to Al-Ahli Arab Hospital For Treatment.
GROUP
Amal, Who Had Taken The Children to the New Gaza School in Al-Nasr in the West of Gaza City, Heard One Day That Yousef was at al-Ahli Hospital.
She Rushed there, relied After Having Sufraced Through Days of Conflicting Reports As Sub People Said They Saw Him Detained, While Others Said They Had Seen Him Elsewhere.
She had barely made it to al-nasr, She Toled Al Jazeera Over The Phone.
On The Day The Family Was Separate, She Says, The Women and Children Were Kept in the Schoolyard For Hours.
“My Children were terrified. Many Kids Were Crying. Sub Were Asking for Food, Water. Mothers Pleaded with Soldiers for Food and Water, but they just yelled at us and refused. ”
In the Afternoon, The Israeli Soldiers Moved The Women and Children to A CheckPoint With A Camera.
“They to awd US to walk out five at a time,” Amal Said, describing How Her 11-Yare-Old Daughter Tala was Was Back Back to Join The Group After Her.
“She Started Crying and Calling, ‘Mama, Ple
They were eventually toled to walk south on Salah al-Din Street.
“The Tanks Surrounding The School Were Overwhelming – I Thought To Myelf: ‘God! To Whole Brigade of Tanks you have eat for themsel defenseless civilians. ‘
“My body was exhausted – I had Given Birth Only a Week Earlier, and I Could Barely Carry My Baby, many Less The Few Belongings We Had.”
As Tanks Rumbled Around Them, They Kicked Up Waves of Dust and Sand. “With All The Dust, I Stumbled, and My Baby Girl Fell from My Arms Onto The Ground,” Amal Recalls, Telling How She Screamed and the Older Children Cried When the Baby Fell.
Eventually, She Left All Their Belongings On The Road; She was too weary to keep carrying them. She Needed to get her Children Somowhere Safe.
“My Four-Yare-Old are Didn’t Stop Crying: ‘I’m Tired, I Can’t Do It.’ We had no food, no water, nothing. “
Early in the Evening, She rear rear new gaza School with Other Displaced People From The North.
Amal, Yousef, and their Children Are Together Now, in a Classroom at the School.
Yousef Spent Two Days in The Hospital and, after 13 stitches, Walks Cautiously With A Clean.
Yousef’s Father Jamil Has Been Missing Since The Day The Soldiers Came To Hamad School. He Heard from Sub People That His Father Had Been Taken Prison, But He Does Not Know.
Their Baby Daughter, Unnamed When They Were Forced To Leave Northern Gaza, You have Been Named Sumoud, “Steadfastness”, a Symbol of Their Refusal to Leave.
