‘I’m here! Do you hear me?: The story of the family death in Gaza

There were times, before Israeli air strikes were shattered on Gaza, a two -month -old ceasefire on March 18, when Hoda Abu Ter and her family could believe that things might return to normal.

After escaping from their home to a shelter for the displaced, then to a tent, another shelter and to another camp within 15 months of war-six or seven exodes at all-they returned to their house in Abasan Al-Kabira, in southeast Gaza, where they lived with the grandparents of the Hoda and their lives.

She returned home a few weeks ago, Hoda, 19, threw a pizza party for her cousins. Hoda, who has been appointed to become a nurse, appears to be always studying. But Hoda replied with a laugh that she loves to enjoy too.

The previous Israeli day Air strikes He resumed, Hoda asked her uncle Nour, who taught technology, if he could help her go to the subject for her high school exams. He said he promised her a study session in the following evening.

But around the middle of the night, Hoda Abdullah’s brother, 15, heard an explosion. “what was that?” He shouted to his father, who had no time to answer before the next explosion, this time over their heads and under their feet at the same time.

He said that Abdullah was sent on the roof of a neighbors. Pieces of the house had arisen in his throat around him. He felt severe pain in his right eye and could not see much. He can only scream: “I’m here! Do you hear me?”

He was amazed by explosions and screaming, his cousin lived near, Qasim, 35, on the street through the dark. He said that the four -storey house, his grandparents, Hoda and Abdullah, built nearly three decades ago, in the words of the flat upper floors at the bottom of the lower.

Using his phone as a manual lamp, Qasim climbed to the interior and saw Jeddah Hoda, Shawky, 63 years old, dumped in the rubble, bleeding. She was not moving.

Qasim said that others who lived there were outside by the power of the explosion. Everywhere, people were bleeding from their noses or ears.

Hoda was one of the eight who were killed, alongside her parents: Asma, 35, who took care of all Abu Thires whenever Shawwiya went to Egypt to treat thyroid cancer, and Muhammad, 42, who was working as a security officer in crossing the border in his Rafah to the Hamas government.

Hoda’s cousin, 13, was breathing when they found him. Qasim said that an ambulance did not arrive for about an hour.

People died waiting. His young sister, Jana, 11, Lenin, 6 years old, and his mother, Folia Abu Ter, 29, were killed.

Shawqiya had died too. Their relatives said that her husband, Suleiman, had died early in the war, when his heart erupted after a close air strike.

“We have never believed that such huge attacks will happen again,” Qasim said two days later at the European Gaza Hospital near Khan Yunis. “We thought the fighting had exhausted both sides, and that this war will not start again.”

The Israeli army said it had targeted a work in Hamas “that remained inside a building” on March 18, but it did not specify the person or specified whether this means Abu Thires’s house. Family members said that there was no reason they would target.

Gaza resumed the daily dead. Israeli Air raids that night The Ministry of Health in Gaza said that more than 400 people have been killed, and it has since killed about 600 other people. The ministry’s numbers are not distinguished by civilians and fighters, although Hamas has publicly announced the death of many senior officials in the initial attacks last month.

Israel said it had renewed air strikes on Hamas sites and agents to force the group to launch more Israeli hostages after Hamas The new Israeli demands rejected.

An investigation into the New York Times found that the Israeli army Its bases About the number of civilians who can be at risk with every air strike in the pursuit of Hamas fighters, which Israel says is an integral part of civilians.

On Wednesday, the Israel Defense Minister, Israel Katz, announced that he would do so Expanding its military attack In Gaza, in addition to the threats waving on the horizon on the population in TEH.

In total, Gaza’s health officials say, More than 50,000 people They were killed since the war began in October 2023, after an attack led by Hamas on Israel, who killed about 1,200 people and took about 250 others. He crushed Israel’s response Entire familiesAll NeighborhoodsGaza health care The system and its educational and infrastructure institutions and most economy.

Abdullah, the 15 -year -old Hoda’s brother, knew little about what happened on that night two weeks ago. After the air strike, he managed to pay the broken water tank aside and the heating board he was besieged before he wandered, two days later. He woke up in the hospital, did he sing both eyes, and his vision is still blurry.

No one has yet told him that Hoda had died, his parents, or that his brother Maher was in intensive care.

Abdullah was the third of five. His father fell for his mother, cousin, when they were still teenagers. In a society where most marriages are arranged, relatives in Hanan Muhammad and the names of the visible said to each other.

The family was everything. Muhammad has always gave big birthday parties for children. When she was one of the sisters of Muhammad, who was also called Hoda, she recovered from the C section, she bathed names and her kitchen as if her sister was, as she remembered the sister.

Qasim Muhammad remembers proudly when he married his older daughter, Bayan. He joked Hoda if she wanted to marry after that, even before graduation, as some Gaza girls did.

She remembered her sister, Amira, that Hoda flew in anger. It was a kind of children who welcomed the “Nurse Hoda in the future” in her books. She loved weddings and shopping as well – for skin care, for elegant dresses. But marriage can wait.

Their grandmother was more traditional. Her family said that Shawky was the backbone of the family, as she reached the food cooked at home and assistance whenever anyone needs this and relying on her faith by force.

Before the war, the family looks forward to moving forward every year to the previous day RamadanWhen Shawiya invites everyone to have a giant meal in the garden before they start their daily fasting in the holy month. Her family was Mavol, a Palestinian Cose dish, and her family remembered: No one was allowed to spice or fill them.

Her daughter, Hoda, said that Abu Thires was resorting to the southern city of Rafah at early last year, because Shawky is usually preferred to visit every son and his daughter in their tents to register the arrival. She sat and helped her grandchildren to memorize the verses of the Qur’an, and they are fed up with dates and files of identification.

At some point during the war, Abu Thires resorted to another family in central Gaza. Their son Nour said that Shawky’s husband, Solomon, grateful, and Solomon promised to pay them when peace returned.

Suleiman died shortly after. But chocolate remembered their promise.

Earlier this month, she made several batches of maftoul and asked one of her children to hand them over to the family who hosted them. It was killed a week later.