Testimony Date: 26 November 2025

My name is Jamila Khaled Mohammed Al-Marishi, 30 years old, married. I lived in Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip before harsh circumstances forced us to flee to Al-Zawaida, where I currently reside in Al-Ata’a and Al-Mahabba Camp. I hold a diploma in medical secretarial studies. Like thousands of women, I found myself facing an entirely new life after the war and forced displacement.

Before 7 October 2023, I lived with my family of six: my husband Thaer Atta Mousa Al-Za’anin, and our four children—Ali (9), Omar (8), Laith (4), and my daughter Tulin (7 months). I am now also the mother of an infant, Sanad, who is 42 days old, born on 16 October 2025. We lived in an apartment within a three-storey building in Beit Hanoun, at the Sabka intersection, leading a simple and stable life as we always had.

On the morning of Saturday, 7 October 2023, we woke to the sudden sound of violent explosions shaking the area. At 6:30 a.m., I was preparing my children for school, but as the situation escalated, we immediately abandoned the idea of sending them out. We stayed inside the apartment, following the news and trying to understand what was happening. As time passed, fear and anxiety for our children intensified, and we witnessed with our own eyes how rapidly and terrifyingly events were escalating.

That same day, the Israeli army began launching intense airstrikes and carpet bombing around the area—scenes we had never experienced before. As the danger intensified, remaining at home became nearly impossible. At noon on Sunday, 8 October 2023, we were forced to go out to the main street without any clear destination. We stood there for long hours, lost, carrying our children and not knowing where we would spend the night. I contacted my uncle Salman so we could stay with him, and we moved to the home of my uncle Amjad Salman near Beit Lahia Youth Club. However, the situation there also deteriorated. After a few hours, my husband’s family arrived and took us by car to my sister-in-law’s family home in Al-Nuseirat, while my husband remained alone in Beit Hanoun. Our contact with him was cut off due to the collapse of communication networks.

My children and I stayed in Al-Nuseirat for about ten days. During that period, my daughter Tulin’s health deteriorated severely. She began suffering from continuous diarrhoea and vomiting. I carried her from one hospital to another in search of treatment, but no effective care was provided. Her condition continued to worsen before my eyes, and I was completely helpless.

On 19 October 2023, despite all the risks, I had no choice but to return north to reunite with my husband, who was displaced at Kuwait School near the Indonesian Hospital with his maternal relatives. I stayed there with him for about a month and a half, under extremely harsh humanitarian conditions that no family could endure.

On the night of 21 November 2023, I lived through one of the most difficult moments of my life. Shells were falling without pause: artillery fire, smoke bombs, successive explosions, and missiles from Israeli warplanes. Gunfire was approaching the school where we were sheltering, and we heard my husband’s relatives saying that the Israeli army was about to storm the Indonesian Hospital. The sounds of gunfire never stopped for a single moment. That night remains etched in my memory with all its terror and fear.

We were inside one of the classrooms at Kuwait School, which was overcrowded with around fifty displaced people, adults and children, all trying to find a moment of safety. Suddenly, the Israeli army began firing directly at the classrooms, deliberately targeting the lights, plunging the place into complete darkness. We could see nothing except red and green laser beams piercing the windows and walls, and we could hear bullets flying around us. My children clung to me, sheltering beneath my legs in sheer terror.

I placed my children beside me and tried to move toward the door, but danger surrounded us from every direction. We all lay flat on the ground, covering ourselves with whatever blankets we could find. My daughter Tulin, may God have mercy on her, was asleep in my arms beside her siblings. Despite the horror, I was afraid even to hold her tightly, fearing I might hurt her.

Within seconds, an Israeli tank fired a shell directly at the classroom we were sheltering in, followed by a second shell. Screams erupted, smoke spread, and a suffocating smell filled the air, making it hard to breathe. I felt the ground shake beneath us, as if the entire world were collapsing on our heads. The blast pressure violently forced Tulin out of my arms, and to this day I do not know how she suddenly disappeared from my arms.

I began pushing debris off my children, screaming, “Ali! Omar!” The ground was covered with rubble, glass, and destruction. People were screaming in every direction, and darkness enveloped the place. I asked Ali and Omar to search calmly for their sister, repeating: “Where is the baby? Look for her carefully… don’t step on her.”

As I searched, I saw a faint light coming from an opening beneath the partition wall separating the women and men. A young man was lighting the area with his phone flashlight, asking if anyone was still alive, while in the background I heard other men warning of the possible explosion of gas cylinders.

At times I crawled; at other times I stood up, only to fall again amid the chaos and destruction. My body was in pain, and I began to feel a burning sensation in my leg. Later, I discovered that four shrapnel fragments had lodged in my leg, that my son Ali had been injured in his left foot to the point that the skin was torn, and that Omar had been struck by shrapnel in his buttocks. To this day, we have not been able to undergo imaging or remove the shrapnel from our bodies.

During my search, I saw Ibtisam, the wife of my husband’s uncle, lying on the ground at the classroom door, bleeding and struggling to breathe. She was taken to hospital, where she remained in intensive care for three days before passing away. May God have mercy on her.

At that moment, I put my hand on my head and realised that my head covering (the sidal) had been blown off by the explosion. I saw it lying on Ibtisam’s body, took it quickly, and covered my head, still in a state of shock and fear.

I screamed at the top of my lungs searching for my husband: “Thaer! Thaer!” but received no answer. I asked those around me if anyone had seen him, but everyone was terrified, trying to flee by any means, unable to help or respond.

When I lost hope of finding my husband among the crowd, I returned to the classroom to search through the smoke and rubble. As soon as I entered, fire and smoke rushed toward my face, and I heard the sound of a man groaning—the sound of someone dying. That sound still haunts me to this day.

I screamed loudly, calling out: “Ali! Omar!” but there was no response. All I could hear were successive explosions, gunfire from all directions, the sounds of aircraft and tanks, and clashes encircling the Indonesian Hospital. I felt myself losing control, losing my children and husband in seconds. I descended to the ground floor completely helpless, my heart collapsing with every step.

Suddenly, I saw my son Omar running toward me from the courtyard, crying. I held him tightly and asked, “My soul, Omar… where is your brother Ali?” Fear prevented him from speaking; his crying intensified, and so did my breakdown.

The scene was like the end of the world—like a Day of Judgment: blood, smoke, screams, and bodies I could not even look at.

To this day, I have not seen my daughter Tulin, may God have mercy on her. I did not say goodbye to her; I did not touch her one last time. Whenever I think of her, my heart trembles at the thought that she may have melted beneath the fire and rubble.

After a few minutes, my husband Thaer appeared—shocked, breathless. He said the strike had hit the classroom we were in and that he thought everyone had been killed. He had been with his uncles performing ablution when the shelling occurred.

I asked him, “Where were you, Thaer?” Then I felt sharp pain in my leg and saw blood flowing from a visible crater caused by shrapnel. Later, I learned that I had sustained three shrapnel wounds in my right leg—two in the thigh and one below the knee—and one fragment in my left leg.

Trembling, I said to him, “Go, Thaer… bring Ali and Tulin. They’re still in the classroom. I can’t get to them.” At that moment, my husband collapsed, sat on the ground crying, and said in a broken voice, “I can’t… I don’t know what to do. Go with the people—see where they’re heading and follow them.” I said, “Thaer, I’m injured… my leg hurts.” He replied, “When you reach Hamad School, there’s a medical point—they’ll help you with first aid.”

I reached Hamad School with great difficulty, bleeding, but no one attended to me because the cases arriving were extremely severe—amputations, deep wounds, people barely alive.

After some time, a nurse gave me a medical bandage and told me to tie it tightly to stop the bleeding. I did so despite the excruciating pain.

We remained at Hamad School until the next morning. When the sun rose, we realised that we had lost Ali and Tulin. We had no information about them. Shortly thereafter, a kind man called out to us, saying, “I saw your son Ali… he’s alive.” He was a neighbour who knew Ali well.

When Ali was brought back to us, he was injured and crying. I held him, feeling my heart shatter from the pain. I told my husband, “We must leave here immediately.” He replied, “Wait a bit… let’s see who from the family is still alive.” I insisted, “Thaer, the place is dangerous. We have to leave now.”

The next morning, as we were leaving Hamad School, the Israeli army fired a shell directly at us. We survived by a miracle. Seconds later, a second shell struck a car loaded with civilians and their belongings. The car exploded completely, killing everyone inside instantly. We saw blood erupt before our eyes—a scene that will never leave my heart.

We walked with great difficulty. I was injured, and Ali could not walk due to his wound. Suddenly, an Israeli drone fired a missile about five metres in front of us. It did not explode, but it created a large crater. The ground around us was covered with blood, rubble, and shattered glass, and we walked barefoot over it all—the pain in our feet and wounds, and the greater pain in our chests.

When Kuwait School was demolished by Israeli military vehicles, we left with nothing—only the clothes we were wearing. No bags, no blankets, no water—nothing. We walked through an area engulfed in fire and destruction as the Israeli army stormed the Indonesian Hospital under heavy fire and advanced toward Jabalia Camp.

After that night, we were displaced to Al-Zaytoun School in Jabalia Camp, where we stayed for three days without any basic necessities—no tents, no bedding, nothing. We all slept in a ground-floor corridor. Some people took pity on us and gave us two mattresses and blankets. Five of us slept on just two mattresses. Whenever someone passed through the corridor, they would unintentionally step on my injured leg, and I endured the pain in silence.

Israeli artillery and airstrikes were extremely close to the school, and shrapnel fell into its courtyard, as if death were chasing us from one place to another. We did not feel a single moment of safety.

During the first truce in November 2023, while we were still at Al-Zaytoun School, my husband said, “Jamila, the army will storm the school… the situation is dangerous, and all of Jabalia is under attack.” I could not move. I told him, “I can’t leave… my family is near Abu Rashid Pond, and my heart is tied to my daughter Tulin. I want to stay close to her.”

Our conversation was painful. My husband tried to convince me out of fear for our lives, while I clung to everything I had lost—especially my child. After hours, some young men volunteered to go to Kuwait School—the site where we were targeted—to retrieve the bodies and bury them in Jabalia Cemetery.

The sight of the bodies is unforgettable. All the bodies were placed in a single bag. Among them was the body of my daughter Tulin, may God have mercy on her, along with thirteen martyrs from my husband’s maternal family: Falah Al-Bisyouni and his son Ahmad; Attaya Al-Bisyouni and his wife Ibtisam; Atiya Al-Bisyouni; my husband’s uncle’s wife Manal Al-Madhoun and her children Mohammad, Laila, and Yahya Al-Bisyouni; my daughter Tulin, 7 months old; my husband’s aunt Kifaya Al-Bisyouni; his aunt Shatha Al-Bisyouni; and Walid Al-Nono.

All of them were killed in the horrific massacre at Kuwait School. As for me and my children, we were the only ones to survive from the classroom targeted by Israeli tanks, while the injured children were sent to Türkiye for treatment.

My daughter Tulin, may God have mercy on her, came after years of waiting and hope. I followed my pregnancy carefully and awaited her eagerly. I dreamed of raising her in my arms and nurturing her with tenderness. But God chose her as a martyr—an angel among the birds of Paradise.

On 5 December 2023, we decided to flee south on foot via the Salah al-Din Street checkpoint (“Al-Hallaba”). It was a terrifying scene: Israeli soldiers lying prone on the ground, aiming their weapons at us. After a long journey, we reached the entrance to Al-Nuseirat, where my husband’s brothers Mousa and Fadi joined us and took us south to Shafa Amr School in the Al-Janina neighbourhood of Rafah.

We stayed in a classroom—eight families in one room, with no privacy or comfort. After just one week, my temperature rose dangerously due to the shrapnel still lodged in my body, and infections appeared in my wound, with pus discharging from it.

I went to Kuwait Hospital, where I finally received treatment and improved slightly. I cared for my wound daily, but my mental state was completely shattered. The psychological pressure shook me to the point that I sometimes acted violently in the classroom, breaking things unconsciously. At night, I screamed from the pain and rubbed my leg intensely. Nightmares haunted me every night.

Life at the school was pure suffering: no privacy, scarce water, almost non-existent basic services, and long waits for toilets that were themselves a form of torture. Aid was extremely limited and insufficient to ease anyone’s pain.

As the assault on Rafah approached, conditions worsened daily. Bombing was random and continuous; smoke bombs were dropped around the school; people began to leave gradually until only us and a few families remained. We felt fear and isolation. We found no transportation to a safe place, and even if we had, we had no money to pay. My husband was unemployed with no income; our financial situation was below zero.

My family in the north tried to help as much as they could, sending small amounts of money despite their own hunger and hardship. Still, we could not find a suitable place to shelter amid the constant displacement.

On 6 May 2024, a friend of one of my brothers-in-law contacted my husband and informed him of a plot of land where we could stay temporarily until the war ended. We went to Al-Zawaida, where we spent the first night outdoors, under trees, without cover, in severe cold. The next morning, young men set up tents—one for women and one for men—and we began trying to organise our lives despite the harshness.

With the start of the second truce in January 2025, I returned north to Beit Hanoun and stayed with my sisters for twenty days. My husband then prepared a tent next to the ruins of our destroyed home. On the first day of Ramadan, I joined him, and we stayed there for about seven days. During that time, the Israeli army fired randomly, even during the truce. I was exposed to a dangerous incident while washing dishes when an Israeli soldier fired at a stone near me, shattering it and sending fragments into my leg. For a moment, I thought I had been hit. I told my husband, “Let’s leave Beit Hanoun… the situation is very dangerous,” but he refused.

That same night, the Israeli army violated the truce again, launching intense gunfire, carpet bombing, and artillery shelling. I felt that the war had never stopped and that every so-called “truce” was merely words.

We stayed only two days in Beit Hanoun. On 18 March 2025, we were forced to flee on foot with nothing, leaving everything behind. We headed to an UNRWA school near Abu Rashid Pond in Jabalia Camp, where we stayed for nearly two months, until May 2025, when the Israeli army invaded Jabalia and ordered a complete evacuation.

We were displaced again, this time to Al-Nasr neighbourhood in Gaza City, where we set up a tent on the roof of a house previously bombed by warplanes. The place was surrounded by rubble, infested with insects and rodents, with no protective barrier or sense of safety. Our conditions deteriorated day by day.

During the famine, my husband had no work or income, so he was forced to go to so-called “aid distribution sites—death traps” in the Zikim area in northern Gaza to obtain a sack of flour. Sometimes he returned with a sack; other times, with nothing. He faced real danger as the Israeli army fired on people gathered there. Still, he risked his life for us, as we could not afford to buy flour or even secure basic provisions.

During this period, I was seven months pregnant and needed nutrition and medical care, but I could not receive regular follow-up due to economic collapse, lack of safety, and constant displacement. Even when treatment was available, it was expensive, and most essential medicines were unavailable—fish oil, calcium, iron. The only thing I received was some vitamins from UNRWA. With constant movement, I did not know where medical points were located. My life and pregnancy grew harder each day.

On 18 September 2025, while we were living through terrifying days, the Israeli army was bombing house after house in Al-Nasr and Al-Shati Camp. Evacuation threats continued relentlessly. We saw an evacuation notice on social media directing residents to head south, and we realised that staying had become a real danger.

We were forced to leave everything and flee toward Al-Zawaida. We did not even have transportation fare, but God made it possible for someone to help us, and we shared the cost with two other families. It felt like a door of relief opening amid hardship.

The journey from Gaza City to Al-Zawaida took more than eight hours due to massive traffic on Al-Rashid coastal road. Thousands of people were walking in the same direction, each carrying their pain and fear on their shoulders, as if all of Gaza were fleeing toward an unknown fate.

When we arrived in Al-Zawaida, we felt a relative sense of calm—a brief stop to catch our breath after dark days. Young men helped organise the tents, leaving spaces between them to allow some privacy. Water was relatively available: a drinking water truck arrived every two days, and water for daily use was supplied through an underground line. Men built a clay oven for baking, and we relied on a communal kitchen (takiyya) for most meals.

Despite all the pain and loss, life continued—only as much as we could bear.

On 16 October 2025, I gave birth at Al-Awda Hospital in Al-Nuseirat at 12:00 noon. I left the hospital the same day at 5:30 p.m. When I began changing my baby’s clothes and examining him, I noticed a small hole on the left side of his neck. I did not understand what it was and continued to monitor him.

A few days later, during breastfeeding, the hole swelled and began to discharge fluid. With every feeding, milk came out of the opening, increasing my fear. After a few days, I noticed a greenish substance on his shirt. When I touched the area, I felt a fatty sac filled with pus-like material. My husband immediately drained and cleaned it, and we went straight to Al-Awda Hospital to see a surgeon.

The doctor was surprised and said such discharge was unusual. He conducted examinations and imaging and reassured us slightly, but said: “At present, we cannot perform any procedure before the baby reaches six months of age.” We then went to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, where doctors told us the condition might be a fistula. I asked the doctor to explain its meaning and cause. He said it was located in the child’s chest and had not closed properly, possibly due to incomplete development caused by malnutrition during pregnancy as a result of the harsh conditions and famine. Some doctors said such a fistula could be connected to the lungs or respiratory system or linked to a specific part of the body, but they could not determine the exact cause, which only increased my fear for my child.

Today, I feel no optimism that the war will end. I live in constant fear, feeling that everything could collapse at any moment. Every sound of a missile or explosion takes me back to the nights when I lost safety and loved ones. My heart tightens every time I remember what we went through, and fear continues to accompany me in my tent and everywhere we have been displaced.

I feel helpless to protect my children or secure a safe future for them. We lost everything: my home, my children’s safety, and the dearest thing I owned—my daughter Tulin. What was her fault? She was killed by shelling, and we could not protect her despite everything we tried.

We lived under fire, surrounded by missiles, with fear filling our hearts.

I call on the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights to convey my voice to the world. We deserve to live in peace, and our children have the right to safety like any other child in the world.

Despite all the pain, loss, and destruction I have endured, I still try to cling to a glimmer of hope—for my children and for all those we have lost. I hope the world hears our voices and stands with us in defending our lives and dignity.