Gaza, Oct 16 (EFE).- “What I need nobody can give me. What I need is to see my mother,” Mohamed, a 16-year-old Palestinian boy who witnessed his brother and mother burn to death after an Israeli attack on the Al-Aqsa hospital on Sunday night, cried over the telephone.<\/p>
On Monday, the world witnessed footage of displaced Palestinians burning alive in their tents next to the Al Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah. Mohamed and his seven-member family were sleeping in some of these tents near the hospital.<\/p>
Standing near the remains of the tents, Mohamed told EFE that one of those people burning in the videos was his brother: Shaaban Al Dalu, a 20-year-old computer engineering student, who was not allowed to study medicine by his father to prevent him from leaving Gaza.<\/p>
Palestinian sources said the fire, which killed five people, could have been caused by the launching of Israeli bombs at the tents, constructed of nylon and plastic.<\/p>
The Israeli army, on its part, said it was investigating the incident, although it believed that the fire was caused by “secondary explosions” in the airstrike targeting the Islamist group Hamas, according to Israeli press reports.<\/p>
“My brother had a hand raised up to the sky as he shouted, \u2018Someone take me out of here, someone save me.\u2019 But God wanted them (my brother and my mother) to have peace,” Mohamed told EFE.<\/p>
Mohamed recalled on that fateful night he was sleeping in another tent, where the family stored the products they sold in a small kiosk in front of the hospital.<\/p>
He was awakened by the sound of an explosion and when he came out, he saw a “black, black smoke, next to the tent.”<\/p>
Videos of the incident, taken with mobile phones, showed flames consuming the tents, a man burning and people screaming and trying to cover those burning with blankets.<\/p>
“My brother Shaaban and my mother died like martyrs before my eyes. People grabbed me and my brother kept burning in front of me. What could I do? I couldn’t do anything. People were grabbing me, they were all around me and they wouldn\u2019t let me approach my brother and he was on fire,\u201d Mohamed said.<\/p>
In Gaza, more than 42,200 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli offensive, 902 families have been totally wiped out, while another 1,364 families have only one surviving member and 3,472 other families are left with just two members. <\/p>
Mohamed underlined that until this incident his entire family had survived the fighting. They arrived at this site on Oct. 23, 2023, just two weeks after the outbreak of the war between Israel and Hamas.<\/p>
“We built this store and thanks to God, we lived (…) We got food and water, everything was fine, but God wanted everything to go,” he rued.<\/p>
The bodies of his brother and mother were already charred by the time the people managed to put out the flames.<\/p>
“I could not recognize my brother or my mother. I identified her by the bracelet she wore in her hand. If she had not worn this bracelet, I would not have known that it was my mother,” he said, taking out of a plastic bag the only memory of her he was left with.<\/p>
He stressed that his mother was his life, while his brother “was a good-hearted person,” whose dream was to listen to the entire Quran in a single session, something – according to Mohamed – he fulfilled just days before he died.<\/p>
His father and two siblings were recovering from burns and wounds at three different hospitals, while Mohamed, who was unharmed, said he was at a loss of words to express what he felt within.<\/p>
“My whole family has got burns, but my heart is what has burned the most. The flames didn’t reach my heart, but my heart was what burned the most,” he said. EFE <\/p>
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