Amani Majed Ramadan Al-Qadi, 25 years old, a resident of Rafah, forcibly displaced to Al-Mawasi, Khan Younis.

Testimony date: 19/04/2025

I am married to Mahmoud Ahmed Abdel Karim Abu Al-Rous, 25 years old. We lived in an apartment in Tel Al-Sultan, Rafah, near the Japanese Garden. We have one daughter, Sham, a year and a half old. My husband worked at a vegetable store.

At around 6:30 a.m. on 7 October 2023, I woke to loud sounds. At first, I thought it was thunder—it was the start of winter—but soon the situation escalated. I looked out the window and saw the sky filled with missiles. I called my husband, begging him to return home out of fear he might be harmed. Shortly after, he came back. From that moment, our lives changed—fear and danger became constant. The Israeli military launched operations across Gaza, bringing hunger and a total collapse of life. Electricity was cut, followed by water, and the entry of food and supplies was blocked. The Israeli bombardments became part of our daily reality.

Months into the war, on 7 May 2024, the Israeli military announced a ground invasion of Rafah and ordered the complete evacuation of the city. We gathered what little we could and headed to Deir Al-Balah (Al-Hakar area), to my husband’s sister’s home. The house was overcrowded—seven families—so my husband set up a tent on the roof for us to stay in. After about five months, Israeli forces began military operations in that area too, so we fled again, this time to Al-Mawasi, northwest of Rafah, where my family was sheltering. We set up another displacement tent and stayed there for another five months, until a ceasefire was announced on 19 January 2025. We then moved to an area called Kherbet Al-Adas, on land owned by one of my husband’s relatives, where we stayed for a month.

During this time, I found out I was pregnant with our second child. But my joy was short-lived. In mid-Ramadan, the Israeli military resumed its ground invasion, this time advancing into Rafah. We had to flee yet again—this time to Al-Mawasi in Khan Younis, specifically to Al-Istable Street, where my husband’s family had a tent on an empty piece of land. Because I was in early pregnancy, we set up our tent a little further from the smoke, fire, and pollution, hoping to protect the baby from the toxic gases.

On the night of Wednesday, 16 April 2025, after praying Maghrib and Isha with my husband, I prepared dinner. After we ate, I lay down to rest while my husband scrolled through the news on his phone. Around 10:50 p.m., I woke to him screaming and shaking me. At first, I thought he needed something. But when I opened my eyes, I saw fire engulfing the tent and my husband shouting, “The fire will kill us! Take Sham and run!” As he spoke, a piece of shrapnel tore through his body. I tried to hold him up to help him out, but the shrapnel had pierced a major artery in his back. He collapsed in front of me—a martyr.

At that moment, while holding him, I felt something pierce my body too. Blood poured from my lower abdomen. I didn’t know what to do—my daughter was bleeding from multiple wounds to her abdomen, I was losing blood rapidly, and I had no idea what had happened to the baby inside me. I lost consciousness.

I woke up at Nasser Medical Complex, after emergency treatment. Doctors told me a piece of shrapnel had entered my womb and killed my baby instantly. I had been preparing for his arrival, hoping he would live on as a part of his father. They performed an emergency C-section to remove him and told me that my baby had saved my life by taking the fatal blow.

Without him, I would have either died or been paralyzed.

As for my daughter, Sham—she remains in critical condition in intensive care. She underwent surgery to remove parts of her intestines, which had been shredded by shrapnel. Even after the operation, she hasn’t regained consciousness. Doctors suspect a head injury may be the cause. In that one attack, I lost my husband, my unborn son whom I carried in my heart before I could carry him in my arms, and my daughter who is still fighting for her life. I never heard a missile. There was no warning—just fire erupting inside the tent, followed by shrapnel flying in all directions. My baby was in the fourth month of pregnancy. We had recently found out he was a boy, and my husband was overjoyed. He had already picked a name—Yaman—and started preparing all his things, making sure everything would be ready for our baby’s arrival. But my husband was killed. My baby was killed before we could hold him. In his final breath, my husband asked me to protect our children and to name our son Yaman, unaware that his son had already gone with him.