10/24/2023 6:06 pm (current 10/24/2023 6:12 pm)
Horror on the day of joy: Abu Shamalah’s family exterminated in the Gaza Strip on October 21. ©AFP
Adam and Sham were born on October 21, the three-year-old boy, six years after his sister. Now both children died on October 21, along with their pregnant mother, Dareen.
According to his father, an Israeli bullet hit his family’s home in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip, where the family believed they were safe from Israeli airstrikes on Gaza City. The fetus was delivered at the hospital by cesarean section, but will likely suffer permanent damage.
According to his father, an Israeli bullet hit his family’s home in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip, where the family believed they were safe from Israeli airstrikes on Gaza City. The fetus was delivered at the hospital by cesarean section, but will likely suffer permanent damage.
Mother and two children died in air attack
Only the father, Ayman Abu Shamalah, survived the attack. According to his own statements, he checked the water tanks on the roof of the three-story building after another delivery finally took place eleven days later. “I was going down the stairs when our house was hit,” the 34-year-old told news agency AFP. “If I had gone down 30 seconds earlier, I would have died along with them.”
Four other relatives and two of his children died on October 21, Abu Shamalah’s children’s birthday. For him, this day will only bring sadness in the future, he says with a choked voice as he wipes his tears with both hands.
Pregnant woman thrown from balcony
The 34-year-old Palestinian says his wife was thrown from the balcony by the shock wave while hanging out laundry. The 28-year-old was nine months pregnant and they had already given their future daughter a name.
“Get Mecca out of my belly”
Abu Shamalah says he did not expect Dareen and her unborn child to survive the fall from the third floor. “But when I found her, she was still alive for a short time.” His last words were: “Ayman, take Mecca out of my belly and take care of her.”
Baby’s brain is not adequately supplied
At the hospital where Dareen’s body was taken, he knelt the doctor to fulfill his wife’s last wish. Doctors managed to bring Mecca into the world through a cesarean section. But a lot of time passed between the mother’s death and birth, during which the baby’s brain did not receive oxygen. According to the head of the emergency room, Mohammad Salameh, Mecca will suffer permanent damage.
Date of birth: October 21st
Abu Shamalah starts crying in front of his daughter’s incubator. He barely notices as a doctor gives him a comforting hug. The note in the incubator says: “Baby of the martyr Dareen Abu Shamalah” – and the date of birth: October 21st.
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