Ahmed Alnaouq arranged to meet near his home, in a cafe in Southwark, a trendy and popular area of London. The Palestinian journalist, who has lived in the UK for four years, sits on the terrace nervously smoking cigarettes on Tuesday November 7th. Despite the pain, which is difficult to express, he wants to tell his drama and with it that of the Palestinians injured or killed in the war between Israel and Hamas, “because we have to speak to Western public opinion about these victims, these 5,000.” Children were born by Palestinians killed [4 500 enfants au 10 novembre, selon le ministère de la santé de l’enclave, administrée par le Hamas]. You need to know,” he said.
Also read: Live, Israel-Hamas war: Hamas claims that “all hospitals” in northern Gaza are “out of order”.
On October 22, at dawn, twenty-one members of his family were killed in the bombing of the family home, “the one where [il est] born and where [il a] “Grew up” in the Deir Al-Balah neighborhood in central Gaza, which should have been a safe area, according to the Israeli army, which urged Gazans to flee the north of the enclave.
The personal drama is so great that Ahmed Alnaouq, as he himself admits, is “in denial.” “I still can’t understand it or think properly,” admits the 29-year-old with a soft voice and a slightly absent-minded look. His father, three sisters, two brothers, a cousin and fourteen nieces and nephews, all children, were killed. “All were civilians, not militants, and had no connection to Hamas. My father was an old man of 75 years old, diabetic, one of my brothers worked for a humanitarian organization, my three sisters were engineers or teachers, my cousin had a doctorate, he taught at the university,” explains Ahmed Alnaouq.
“Parts of children’s corpses among the rubble”
He couldn’t go with them. “I wasn’t able to kiss her and say goodbye one last time. They didn’t even have a funeral, they were buried straight away. “Parts of the children’s bodies are still lying under the rubble,” says the journalist. Only two people survived the strike: one of his sisters-in-law and her son. And she has two other sisters who were not in the family home at the time of the impact but are still stuck in Gaza: “I finally managed to contact one of them today, she feels so alone, life is so hard, access to food and water… People are psychologically devastated. »
Ahmed Alnaouq had already lost his mother to cancer three years ago, “died at home because Israel refused to allow her further treatment outside the Gaza Strip.” However, he says that he is surrounded by people in London: “The people are very nice, many have offered me help and are contacting me.” »
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