Raeda Hamdan Rushdi Dughmosh, 33 old, and resident of Tel al-Hawa neighborhood in Gaza City, gave her testimony to PCHR on 11 January 2024.

At approximately 09:00 on Saturday, 09 December 2023, while I was home preparing breakfast in the kitchen, I heard a loud explosion and suddenly the kitchen’s walls collapsed on me. It was pitch-dark and I could not see anything. I screamed out of severe pain and heard my sister’s voice asking me if I was fine. My family hurried to remove the rubble on me and my leg was broken having skin totally ripped. I was severely bleeding and then taken in a civilian car to the Jordanian Hospital in Gaza as my family could not contact an ambulance. At the hospital, doctors tried to put my broken bones back together and place a cast. There was no x-ray imaging, so I was referred to al-Ahly Arab Hospital (known as the Baptist Hospital) to have an x-ray. However, doctors there told me that they have to refer me for treatment to the southern Gaza hospitals, as there were no doctors nor medical equipment in Gaza City to deal with my injury.

There was an ambulance waiting for me, so I had to decide quickly whether to stay in Gaza City or go to the south. I had no choice but to go to the south with my sister without having any of my belongings, except my ID card. At 14:00, my sister and I left and there were seven ambulances ahead and two UNRWA vehicles behind us. We moved to the south through Salah al-Deen Street. When we reached al- Shuhadaa’ intersection (known as Netzarim), the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) stationed there stopped us and broke into the ambulances with their weapons. They ordered me to raise my head as I was lying on a stretcher, and forced all the ambulance crews and patients’ companions to get out. They searched all ambulances and UNRWA vehicles and interrogated us after ordering me to remove the blanket on my injury and give them my ID card.

On 03 January 2024, my sister underwent a fracture fixation surgery to implant titanium plates for her broken leg and she was later discharged from the hospital as it was overcrowded.