Date of testimony: 08 June 2025

My name is Al-Mo’ataz Belah Mohammed al-Kafarnah (38), married with 5 children and resident of Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza but currently displaced in western Gaza City.

(This testimony was originally published on social media. Given its importance, PCHR contacted Mr. Al-Mo’ataz Belah al-Kafarnah and obtained his consent to publish it on PCHR’s website.)

I used to live in Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, but since the beginning of the Israeli war in the Gaza Strip on 07 October 2023, I have been displaced 8 times from Beit Hanoun to Jabalia and from there to Tal al-Hawa followed by al-Nussairat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip then to Khan Younis, and from there to Rafah. We later returned to Khan Younis. After the ceasefire, I went back to Beit Hanoun, but when the aggression resumed, I was displaced once again but this time to Gaza City.

The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) destroyed my 2-storey house. Since then, we have endured the bitter life in tents, displacement and starvation. My wife Kholoud Salah al-Kafarnah (38) is an academic and suffers from a liver disease, so since the outbreak of the war, we have struggled a lot to provide her medication. For my children, the eldest is a 12-year daughter and the youngest is 5-year-old son; all of them have endured unbearable conditions imposed by this brutal war, including relentless bombardment, repeated displacement, deprivation of education and -the most devastating of all- hunger.

I used to work as an audit and compliance officer in a Western Union agent- a money transfer company- and due to the war, I lost my job, making life worse and harder amid the skyrocketing prices in Gaza. For more than 3 months, we have endured catastrophic conditions- we ran out of flour and most of foodstuffs and if any is available, it is extremely scarce and at exorbitant prices. Faced by this tragic reality, I decided to go to the American aid distribution points established by IOF in the southern Gaza Strip despite being fully aware of the dangers and hearing about the huge number of casualties inflicted since the opening of the distribution point. Circumstances forced me to walk the path of pain, exactly like the path of Christ’s torments in his denial and prophecies, and the torments of Muhammad in the abandonment by his kin, his persecution, siege, and the torments of Abraham being thrown into the fire without intercession.

Truly, the torments endured by the people of Gaza are no less than the torments of the Prophets of strong resolve.

My journey began on the Day of Arafat, 05-06-2025, setting off to reach the humanitarian aid center In Rafah. We started walking from the Al-Azhar area, where I am displaced in western Gaza, after the Maghrib prayer on the aforementioned day. We were full of hope that we would find any means of transportation to take us towards southern Gaza via Al-Rashid Street, whether a three-wheeled motorcycle (tuk-tuk/tricycle) or an animal-drawn cart, as cars are prohibited on that road. But unfortunately, we found no means of transport whatsoever. So our arduous journey extended on foot from west Gaza City all the way to the Fish Fresh area in the far southwest of #KhanYounis, which is the starting point towards the American aid center, GHF. We arrived after a long walk that lasted from 7:30 PM on the Day of Arafat until 2:30 AM on the first day of Eid al-Adha. As soon as we arrived, a new chapter of torments began after the agony of walking 8 hours for a distance exceeding 35 kilometers. We had to walk with extreme caution to a mosque in the area called Moawiya Mosque, where we settled until the checkpoint opened for us to enter the aid center.

Upon our arrival, we realized we had to try to enter. Indeed, we began to approach the Israeli checkpoint, hoping it would be open so we could enter and get food. But we heard an Israeli loudspeaker calling out, saying that the aid center was closed, there was no distribution, and we should go home.

Those with prior experience told us that this was an Israeli tactic to reduce the number of people present, encourage the majority to leave, and discourage people, so we should not leave. And that’s exactly what happened. So, we returned to our previous gathering spot near Moawiya Mosque and sat there until we decided to try again to walk towards the Israeli checkpoint, hoping they would allow us to enter. We approached slowly, and our number exceeded five thousand people.

Upon reaching near the checkpoint, the Israeli loudspeaker called out again, saying, “Go back, the center is closed,” and they started insulting and cursing us, threatening to shoot us within three minutes if we didn’t leave the place. Before they could finish their warning, and before we could move, they started firing directly at us without any mercy or compassion. I looked around to find dozens injured, and the screams of the wounded crying out for someone to save them, but no one could lift their head due to the intense gunfire and the whistling sounds overhead. But as soon as the firing subsided a little, the young men managed to evacuate the injured to the nearest point, which was a large and central International Red Cross center near the location. But the greater pain was that among the injured, some had lost their lives. So, we returned, our spirits broken, our heads bowed, consumed by sadness, fear, and pain all at once. Some who were with us in the same queue were either injured or gone forever on Eid day… This black Eid, where our hunger drove us out to get food from the hands of our enemy… food wrapped in humiliation and disgrace after we were once dignified.

We returned and tried to sleep on the dust in front of the sad Rafah beach, waiting for the time to enter the center. Then, at a quarter to seven in the morning, intense, direct, rapid, and terrifying gunfire began, with its height not exceeding one meter above the ground. All you could do was lie face down or curl up in a fetal position… Your entire life flashes before your eyes; you remember those who love you… You say, “Woe is me, death is not my last concern today, but how can I die and not return to my children with food to satisfy their hunger? They are waiting for me in the shelter, hungry, hoping for my return alive and with some food.” You remember their laughter with you during meals and how those laughs turned into cries and looks that make you feel inadequate and complicit in their hunger. They are innocent, naive children who don’t know the truth that you are hungrier than them, that you are helpless, and that going to this desolate, death-filled place is nothing more than an attempt to feed them and nothing else.

The firing continued from a quarter to seven until eight o’clock… an hour and a quarter of gunfire at every movement, from all types of weapons, synchronized with the sounds of various aircraft. Terror on all sides. Nothing on your tongue but the two testimonies (Shahadatain) and “Allah (God) suffices us, and He is the best Disposer of affairs.” And when the firing stopped, the experienced ones said, “This is the time to enter…” The entry was a cinematic scene of ultimate tragedy, never depicted in the epics of the Romans or Greeks, or even Dante’s Divine Comedy… You must run out of the place where you were sheltering from the gunfire… Running is essential to reach. A distance of more than 2 kilometers, you won’t flinch seeing young men lying on the ground… plastic bags, which they had in their hands to carry what they would get from the aid center, spread over their faces… Some of the wounded are lying on the ground, struggling with their bleeding, and some are trying to help themselves if the injury is in their leg, for example… Despite the sounds of sandals on the road, you will hear the groans of the wounded… Your conscience will tear like used paper, useless now. Your humanity will fly away like ashes scattered in the wind… You run like animals to get food, seeing victims and injured, but you cannot look at them or help them for reasons, the first being that as soon as you stop, the crowds of hungry people behind you will push you and trample you under their feet without mercy or compassion, or you will be shot, or you will not reach the aid… You must run, raising your hand and the white bag you will carry the aid in as a sign of surrender, that you are a civilian who only came to get your share of food, like an animal waiting for its feedlot to open in a barn without morals or feelings.

You reach the Israeli checkpoint, then turn left to run an additional kilometer, then you will turn right to run a third kilometer to reach the American checkpoint (the private US security company officers) … You will find them as Hollywood movies depict them, armed with all sorts of weapons, wearing black sunglasses, donning vests with the American flag, and headphones behind their ears, pointing their weapons at our bare chests, firing towards the ground beneath the feet of those trying to advance and reach the aid located behind a hill they stand on.

They retreated slowly, still pointing their weapons at us, leaving us exactly as they do in rodeo arenas to unleash the bulls… But we are humans, truly humans, yet they try to strip humanity of us and turn us into beings lower than animals; no order, no ethics, nothing. Skeletons of the hungry running to scavenge any crumbs they can reach, even if from the hand of their killer.

After their retreat and clearing the way for us to climb the hill behind which they place the aid, everyone in the queue transforms into the same aforementioned type… beasts jostling to snatch from a prey laid before them. You must run with all your might to catch a box containing some food; there is no organization, no equality, no justice… the law of the jungle rules. As soon as you get a box, you must empty it into the bag you carry and escape from the place as fast as possible, because those coming behind you, if they don’t find boxes to carry, will pounce on you to snatch what you carry. If you can collect what falls on the ground in front of you from others fleeing like you, do so, but without stopping, or you will fall and be trampled by the feet of others fleeing like you, or you will be robbed by the hungry or bandits. You must carry any bladed weapon, a knife or a scalpel, and be careful and move within a group of your friends, acquaintances, relatives, or those you agree with, so that each of you protects the other along the way… Truly a jungle in every sense of the word, where the strong devour the weak without any mercy… They have stripped us of everything related to humanity, turning us into soulless monsters. After leaving the land of death at the aid center, carrying some food, you open the bag to see what you got. Here I will mention what I received: 2 kg lentils, half a kg of chickpeas, 2 kg flour, 4 kg pasta, 1 kg tahini, 1 liter cooking oil (serge), 2 kg salt, 1 can of canned peas, 1 can of canned beans, and 2 cans of canned fava beans. Here, your tear will fall, overcoming you if you have any remnants of humanity. You will feel oppression tearing your heart and soul without mercy or compassion. The veins of your soul will tear; your feelings will bleed incessantly… Is it for this meager amount of food that I throw myself into the mouth of death, walk tens of kilometers, crawl on my belly hundreds of meters, run thousands of steps, see the bodies of young men lying on the ground, see the wounded and cannot extend my hand to save any of them…? Oh, what a terrible state we have reached… Is it for this scarce amount of food that these people died…? Young men, O Lord of the Worlds, young men and heads of households who left their children hungry on Eid day, and now they return to them in shrouds, and their children remain hungry…

A new black Eid day, a new bitter Eid day, an Eid day called Eid, but in Gaza, it is not even similar to any Eid… Gaza has lived through 4 Eids since the beginning of the war, all of them black, but this Eid is the darkest and gloomiest of them all.

Do not forsake us, O Lord… Everything within us is dying. Do not forsake us, we beg You, O Lord, for us, as Arabs and Muslims, and by ourselves, have no power except through You.