M. ‘A. S. (21) from Jabalia and currently displaced in Mawasi Khan Younis

Testimony on 25 August 2024

I was a tailor but am now unemployed due to the ongoing war on the Gaza Strip and ensuing displacement. After the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip began on 07 October 2024, I stayed with my family in our house for 50 days. However, the situation got worse when the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) indiscriminately fired artillery shells on our area and many fell on our house on 18 November 2023. As a result, the gas cylinders at home exploded, and my father was hit with shrapnel in his lower back. As hospitals were out of service, my uncle, who is a nurse at the Indonesian Hospital, had to treat my dad, and then we had to evacuate to Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, near the UNRWA-run barracks. My dad was diabetic and wheelchair-bound due to previous brain strokes, so his injury was infected, and he eventually died on 29 February 2024. We stayed in Rafah behind the UNRWA barracks until IOF started their invasion into the city nearly in the beginning of May 2024, and targeted several places behind the UNRWA barracks, forcing us to flee and seek shelter in al-Somoud displacement camp in Mawasi Khan Yunis, where we are currently staying.

To make a living and support my family, at around 10:00 on Sunday, 23 June 2024, I went with a group of 19 young men (I do not know any of them) to the Kerem Shalom Crossing, eastern Rafah, near Shokah School, searching for work. We walked around 800 meters to the east and arrived where the truck drivers were. Suddenly, three military SUVs carrying Israeli soldiers advanced towards us.  They surrounded us and then the soldiers searched us one by one. Afterwards, we were handcuffed with plastic zip ties behind the back, blindfolded with a piece of cloth, and then forced to get into the SUVs that drove us for around an hour to the Egyptian borders near Rafah Crossing, where a UN warehouse was located, and an IOF site was established (I could see it from under the blindfold). We were held in olive-green tents in the military site for three days; during which, we were not offered any food, only water, and remained handcuffed and blindfolded. Whenever I needed to go to the bathroom, one of the soldiers would walk me there, pull my pants down and when I finished, he would pull them up. At approximately 10:00 on the fourth day, the IOF came and took me along with 4 other young men, not knowing any of their names. We were taken into a military SUV that drove us and after 20 minutes stopped and dropped us off. After being unblindfolded, we found ourselves in a military site established between houses in Rafah on Salah al-Din Road. They held us in one room on a floor in a house with two Israeli soldiers guarding us. At around 16:00 on Thursday, 27 June 2024, an Israeli soldier entered the room and took me along with another detainee to the ground floor of the house, where we were informed that they would use us to photograph the houses, streets, roads and tunnels (as human shields). We refused immediately but after threatening to shoot us and then beating us with rifles’ butts and hands, the soldiers forced us to wear IOF’s military uniform and then walked us to an area, which was about five minutes away from the place of detention.

At that moment, they placed a helmet on his head with a camera and an earpiece, and they did the same with the other person. Afterwards, the soldiers ordered us to enter a house and film it with the camera on the helmet. After being beaten and threatened to shoot us, we obeyed their orders. Accompanied by a quadcopter, we entered and filmed the houses with the camera fixed on our helmets while the soldiers were guiding us where to move in the house, right or left, and what to film and to focus on the ground floors. Sometimes, they would order us to cut some wires with a cutter they gave us, fearing that the wires might be attached to explosives hiddenly implanted by Palestinian armed groups. After being done with the house, the soldiers would come in, open fire, go through its contents and destroy them. I did what they ordered me to do out of fear of the soldiers’ threats to shoot me. I was in their custody for 42 days; during which, I was used as a human shield about 15 times, offering me one meal a day comprised of two slices of bread and if I had a mission to accomplish, they would bring me some tuna with the bread. At approximately 06:00 on Tuesday, 06 August 2024, an Israeli soldier came and ordered me to go with him alone. I was afraid, because they would usually take us two or three together. I refused to go with him, but then did after being beaten with the weapon’s butt in my back. He forced me to go with him and then placed me in a tank that drove me for about 10 minutes and then stopped. I was then ordered to get out of the tank without wearing their military uniform this time and go to another targeted by the Palestinian armed groups and film it. I refused out of fear, so they beat me and threatened to shoot me. They then placed the helmet with the camera on my head and headed towards the tank while the soldiers were behind me. And just when I was about ten meters away from the targeted tank, I suddenly felt severe pain in the right side of my chest, so I looked to where I felt pain and found myself bleeding. I fell on the ground and then fainted, waking up the next day in a hospital. After being released, I learned from medical reports that I was in Soroka Hospital, where I stayed for 3 days, and that a gunshot hit my back and exited my chest. At around 10:00 on Friday, 09 August 2024, I was released, and an ambulance with a soldier guarding me inside drove me to the Kerem Shalom Crossing, where an ambulance belonging to the Palestinian Ministry of Health (MOH) met me and took me to Nasser Hospital. Upon my arrival there, I underwent medical examinations and was told to come back for a revision every 2 or 3 days. I left the hospital and went to the al-Somoud camp, where my family is staying.

I got better, but a shrapnel fragment is still in the lung, and I have been told that I need surgery after the war ends to remove it.