February 4, 2025
44 Days of Siege and Hunger Beside the Bodies of My Slain Family Members
44 Days of Siege and Hunger Beside the Bodies of My Slain Family Members

I am Fatima Anwar Lutfi Al-Jukhleb, 35, a kindergarten teacher, and I am married to Mohammad Khamees Qandeel, 35, and we live in an apartment in a three-story building in the western part of Khan Yunis.

Date: January 24, 2025

On the morning of October 7, 2023, at around 6:30 AM, I was preparing to go to work when suddenly we began to hear loud explosions. At first, we thought it was just a usual escalation, as had happened many times before, and I didn’t pay much attention to it as I continued preparing. However, the sounds grew louder, and I felt that something unusual was happening.

I stopped getting ready and began to check the news channels to understand what was going on around us. That was when I realized that the situation marked the beginning of a war, and I understood that things would be difficult. Immediately, the kindergarten announced that work was suspended until further notice.

From that moment onward, the events rapidly escalated, leading to massacres and the targeting of innocent civilians in their homes. The attacks became indiscriminate, with no regard for age, gender, or whether the target was a civilian or a military site. No building was spared, whether it was a school, mosque, university, or residential tower. Every person and every place in Gaza became a target for the Israeli military. These attacks became a part of our daily lives: we woke up to explosions, tank shells, gunfire, and flares. At times, we would find shrapnel from these attacks near our home. We stayed in the house despite the danger surrounding us. However, something unimaginable happened. Around 3:00 PM on December 4, 2023, without any prior warning, the Israeli forces launched a massive carpet bombing in our area, shaking the entire region. The sounds of tanks, gunfire, shells, and flares accompanied this event. It was an experience that cannot be described or forgotten.

At that time, I was at home with my mother (Basma, 60 years old), my father (Anwar, 69 years old), my aunt (Najwa, 65 years old), my brother (Ahmad, 27 years old) and his wife (Nagham, 22 years old), my sister (Maha, 34 years old), who was nine months pregnant, and her son (Ahmad, two and a half years old), and my younger brother (Mohammad, 15 years old). Due to the intensity of the bombardment, we all gathered in the basement in a corner far from the windows, as all the windows in the house were shattered and glass had scattered everywhere from the carpet bombing. The situation was so dire that we couldn’t even evacuate the house. My father is in a wheelchair, my mother is elderly, and my sister was pregnant with a small child. It would have been impossible for them to run to the streets in order to escape.

The shelling and carpet bombing continued for more than four hours. During this time, we attempted to contact the Red Cross for help, but they informed us that they could not reach us due to the dangerous situation in the area.

We prayed for Allah to protect us. As night fell, the carpet bombing ceased. We quickly moved to the upper floors and gathered our essentials, including mattresses, blankets, and other necessities. Once we had prepared a place far from the windows and doors where we could all sleep, we suddenly began to hear the sounds of approaching tanks. Anticipating that they might reach us, we began preparing some items in case we needed to leave the house the next morning before the tanks arrived.

However, events were rapidly unfolding. Before midnight, the tanks had already positioned themselves in front of our house, marking the beginning of our siege. At this point, the Israeli military tanks were firing indiscriminately at all the homes in the area. To avoid alerting the soldiers to our presence inside the house, we remained perfectly still, careful not to make any noise that might attract attention. We feared that if the soldiers detected us, they might destroy the house with us inside.

We remained as quiet as possible in the house, taking refuge in a room next to the bathroom. Whenever we needed to use the bathroom, we crawled slowly to avoid making any sound. As for water, we still had a supply of drinking and utility water in the house. For food, we relied on canned goods that require no cooking, so as not to emit any smell that might alert the Israeli forces to our presence. We carefully timed our activities, waiting for moments when we heard the soldiers’ footsteps moving farther from the house, allowing us to eat and take care of our needs.
As the call to evening prayer echoed and daylight faded, we retreated to our designated spots. At this hour, with night approaching, sounds were heard clearly. We maintained this routine for ten days. Throughout this period, the IOF fired shots at the house walls, morning and evening.

At approximately 10:00 AM on December 15, 2023, as we were preparing breakfast, we felt the outer wall of the house collapse, and the tanks grew rapidly closer. Immediately, everyone in the house gathered in the kitchen. We closed the door, placing olive oil canisters and various implements behind it, hoping this would deter the soldiers from breaking in. Minutes later, a hail of bullets tore through the kitchen door. This was followed by grenades being thrown into the kitchen through the bullet holes, resulting in injuries to all of us present as the grenades got inside. Amidst the continued gunfire, my father, Anwar, who was seated directly behind the door, was killed instantly, followed by my aunt, Najwa, who also was killed. My sister, Maha, and her unborn child, in her final month of pregnancy, also tragically lost their lives. The rest of us sustained injuries across our bodies. The soldiers then yelled at us to open the door after several unsuccessful attempts to force it open themselves. During this time, my brother, Ahmad, suffered a shrapnel wound to his mouth, causing severe bleeding. I was injured in the shoulder, my mother sustained shrapnel wounds to her back and legs, my brother’s wife was hit in the head, and my brother, Mohammed, was wounded in his legs. My nephew, Ahmad, suffered a shrapnel injury to his abdomen and was also bleeding. Ahmad moved to open the kitchen door, but as soon as he did, he was shot in the head and died instantly. There were approximately ten Israeli soldiers present at that point. They then ordered us to leave the house, forcing us out into the garden, where they made us kneel on the ground with our hands behind our heads.

The interrogation phase began. At that time, there were five soldiers pointing their weapons at our heads. They started asking questions, particularly focusing on my brother Mohammad. However, since he was injured and unable to speak, my mother and I immediately responded on his behalf to prevent any of the soldiers from becoming reckless and potentially harming him further. The interrogation began with personal questions about us, then shifted to questions about the area, the mosques, tunnels, and other general inquiries.

During the interrogation, some of the soldiers went to the house and began searching it, taking all the mobile phones and laptops. Once they finished the interrogation, they left us outside for nearly an hour. After that, they ordered us to raise a white flag and leave the house. However, just as we were about to leave, they reversed their decision and ordered us to return to the house, close the door behind us, and not move inside.

We returned to the house, only to find the bodies of my martyred family members lying in the kitchen. We entered the house and began disinfecting our wounds with cotton and antiseptic. My nephew Ahmad’s condition worsened significantly, and the bleeding wouldn’t stop. After some time, he passed away, joining his mother as a martyr. At this point, only my mother, my younger brother, my brother’s wife, and I remained in the house.

After tending to our injuries, we closed the kitchen door on the bodies of the martyrs and took refuge in a room near the bathroom. The night was long and terrifying, and despite our exhaustion, we couldn’t sleep. How could we sleep when we had lost our family? The anxiety of being trapped, injured, and surrounded by the bodies of our loved ones only added to our torment. The first night passed in silence and grief.

The next day, we began collecting canned goods from the house—anything that didn’t require cooking—such as rice, thyme, and sweets. We avoided moving around too much inside the house, only going to the bathroom when we felt the soldiers had moved away from the area. As nightfall approached, we stayed in our places, motionless, until morning. If we needed to use the bathroom, we would hold it in, pushing ourselves to wait until the morning to avoid making any noise that could alert the soldiers to our presence.

After a short period, the canned goods in the house ran out. We had no choice but to place a gas stove under the stairs, far from the windows, in order to cook food without letting the smell escape outside. We made bread pies and pasta. In these conditions, we couldn’t taste the food—it was more of a necessity to keep us alive for as long as possible. The food itself didn’t matter; the only thing that mattered was not starving to death.

As for the Israeli military, there were two patrols—one in the morning and one in the evening. When each patrol took over its shift, it would immediately begin firing directly at our house, causing harm and destruction to both us and the building. In addition, there were the constant sounds of dogs standing outside our door, barking incessantly.

The soldiers would also enter our garden to harvest the fruits we had planted—such as oranges, lemons, and apples. We had a small garden with various types of fruits and vegetables, and they would enjoy picking them while we starved inside the house.

When night fell, the soldiers would intentionally shine their flashlights onto the windows of our house. They would repeatedly turn the lights on and off, disorienting us. Additionally, they would throw flares into the garden, causing them to glow with a red light, making us feel as though the house was on fire. We lived in constant fear, not knowing when the next flare or gunshot would come. This harassment continued for 44 days, a never-ending cycle of fear, hunger, and torment.

At around 11:00 AM on January 29, 2024, we began to feel an unusual amount of movement in the area. We stayed in our place, silent and still, trying to discern the sounds getting closer—the footsteps of people approaching. We thought the Israeli military had returned to our house once again, so we covered ourselves with blankets, staying perfectly still, even holding our breath to avoid detection.

After a short time, we sensed that there were people inside the house. We remained in our spot, waiting to see who had entered. When we heard them speaking Arabic, we cautiously peeked our heads out from under the blanket and realized that the people inside were young men from our area.

We were so stunned that we couldn’t even speak. We couldn’t believe that the military had pulled out, that we were still alive, and that someone had managed to reach us. The young men told us that the Israeli forces had withdrawn two days ago and asked why we hadn’t left and why we hadn’t noticed. In our state of constant fear, the anxiety and sounds we had been hearing for so long had made us unable to realize that the military was no longer there. We had grown so accustomed to the fear that we couldn’t tell it had ended.

Immediately, the young men helped us into my father’s car so we could leave the area. We had to leave the bodies of our martyrs behind in the house because we couldn’t carry them and had no idea where to take them. They told us that many people had returned to the “Hamad City” area, so we decided to head there. The young men drove us to Hamad City, but once we arrived, we didn’t know where to go.

Then, we remembered that my sister Maha, who had been martyred, had recently bought a new apartment in Hamad City. Fortunately, we had brought some of Maha’s belongings with us. After searching, we found the key to her apartment in her bag. The young men helped us settle our belongings in the apartment.

Afterward, they took us to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah. Upon examination, the doctors found that the flesh had healed over the shrapnel embedded in our bodies, making it difficult for them to remove it. All they could do was disinfect our injuries and provide us with some pain relief.

After that, we returned to Hamad City and stayed there for three days until we were able to contact our relatives. My brother’s wife managed to get in touch with her family, who then took us to the Muwassi area in Khan Yunis. We stayed with them in a room made of asbestos for four days until we were able to reach my sister Hala, who lives in Al-Zawaida. I went with my mother and younger brother, while my brother’s wife stayed with her family.

At that point, we began to process what had happened to us. We waited for the situation in Khan Yunis to stabilize before we could retrieve the bodies of the martyrs from our house. On February 23, 2024, my sister’s husband was able to go to our house and recover the bodies. We were able to bury them properly.

When a ceasefire was announced in Gaza, we returned to our home, only to find that it had been severely damaged—much worse than when we had left it. The upper floors had been burned, and part of the ground floor had been destroyed. We managed to repair two rooms, a bathroom, and the kitchen where the bodies of the martyrs had been.

We returned because we had nowhere else to go, despite the difficulty of the situation. With every step we took inside the house, we were reminded of what had happened. We remembered how the Israeli military had killed my family members before our eyes, how we had spent so long with the bodies of the martyrs beside us, and how we had survived death after all that we had endured. We struggled to understand how we would continue our lives after everything we had been through. We had lost them, yet in the midst of the horror, we hadn’t been able to grieve their loss. Now, as time passed, we were beginning to understand what had happened, and we were starting to feel the weight of our loss.