In the emergency room of Israel-bombed Nasser Hospital in the Gaza Strip, doctor Mahmoud al-Astal was providing first aid to people injured in an attack when a colleague told him that his sister and her entire family had been killed.
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“I immediately ran to the mortuary to check. Their bodies were so torn that I couldn’t recognize them,” Mr Astal, 34, an emergency doctor at the main hospital complex in Khan Younes in southern Gaza, told AFP.
According to him, the deadly attack occurred on the third day of Israeli bombings on October 7 in retaliation for an attack of unprecedented magnitude by Gaza’s ruling Hamas on Israeli soil.
She damaged several houses and completely destroyed that of her sister Sadafah al-Astal (40), who died along with her husband Hussein (40), her two daughters Fadwa (13) and Azar (6) and her two sons Ahmad (12). , and Souleimane, 8 years old.
“I have been having nightmares since the martyrdom of my sister and her family. “I keep imagining my own children arriving at the hospital in pieces,” the doctor admits. “My children dream of traveling one day, but now I don’t even know if they will make it out of this war alive.”
Despite the horrific ordeal he endured, he says he has “no choice but to continue working to save lives.”
“The Smell of Death”
In the emergency room, wearing a red vest, he examines a crying little girl who is bleeding from the head and sitting on the edge of the bed. “Don’t be afraid,” he said to reassure her.
Walaa Abou Moustafa, 33, is also an emergency doctor at the same hospital.
She claims to have discovered with horror that her aunt Samira Abou Moustafa, her husband Tawfiq, 40, and their 15-year-old son Sharif were among “dozens” of strike victims who arrived at the ‘hospital at dawn on Friday.
Her aunt and son were already dead when they arrived at the hospital, while her husband died shortly afterwards, she explains. “My cousin Sharif’s torn body arrived wrapped in a sheet,” she says.
“My aunt was like a mother to me. My mother loved him very much. “I’m still in shock,” sighs Ms. Abou Moustafa. “I am very touched, but I will continue working because it is my duty and we do not have enough doctors.”
His colleague, pulmonologist Raed Al-Astal, was in hospital on Monday when he received a panicked call from his wife telling him that there had been an attack on a building opposite their home.
“My aunt, her husband and daughters, as well as my cousin’s wife were killed,” the doctor said, claiming he rushed to the emergency room where the bodies were brought.
“The smell of death is everywhere, in every neighborhood, every street and every house,” he says angrily.
According to the Hamas Health Ministry, Israeli strikes have killed more than 7,300 Palestinians, the vast majority civilians, including more than 3,000 children.
They were carried out in retaliation for attacks by the Palestinian Islamist movement on Israeli soil that were unprecedented in their violence and scale. According to Israel, more than 1,400 people were killed in these attacks, the vast majority of them civilians.