We were informed that we had to head to southern Gaza as it was declared a “safe humanitarian zone.” On our way south, the road felt like hell itself. A bus carrying a family was bombed, and it was the first time I saw body parts flying through the air. Every kilometer or so, you would see a car, completely charred with the people inside, people who had lives and dreams. These cars were left as they were, and perhaps even run over by tanks.
We reached Khan Younis, where I stayed at the Red Crescent for 90 days. I lived through experiences you cannot even imagine. The Red Crescent was bombed more than 10 times. Death was closer to me than my jugular vein. I could almost taste it, yet it refused to take me, until Israeli tanks surrounded us. The Israeli forces then stormed the Red Crescent. A soldier stood at the door, cursing and spewing vile, despicable words. He started yelling, “Come out, you animals!”
The path between their tanks was one of the hardest things I’ve ever faced in my life. They humiliated us, and they humiliated our women and elderly in the most brutal ways. They took one young man from among us and ordered him to take off his clothes and dance. When he refused, they put a bullet between his eyes.
The road was filled with corpses and tears.
We eventually reached Rafah, but after a short time, I had coordinated with a company, Ya Hala, to evacuate my deaf sisters, who were suffering greatly, to Egypt.
Two days before their names were included in the evacuation list, the Israeli army entered Rafah and closed the crossing, forcing us to flee to Deir al-Balah. I now live in a tent at a UNRWA school in Deir al-Balah. We are surrounded by the Zionists from all sides. They starve us, kill us, and bomb the schools every day. I’ve been displaced more than five times while in Deir al-Balah, from one tent to another, from one form of death to the next. Each time, I begged death to take me, but it refused, as if it found pleasure in my suffering.
This Zionist enemy has inflicted upon us every kind of torture imaginable, under the pretext of “self-defense” and “releasing their hostages.” If they truly wanted their hostages back, they could have ended this genocide in the first month. But instead, they enacted the “Hannibal Directive,” which shows they don’t care about their hostages. All they care about is indulging in the killing and diverse methods of slaughtering innocent people.
by Omar from Gaza