Btselem / 23 June 2024

I am a sixth-year medical student and live with my parents and siblings in the Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City. On 7 October 2023, I was at home and we all woke up to the sound of rockets and bombs. Two days later, on 9 October, the army ordered the residents of the neighborhood to evacuate and move to the south of the [Gaza] Strip, but we stayed home and didn’t leave. That same day, our home was bombed with us inside. It’s a three-story building, and there were about 10 people inside. We all managed to climb out of the rubble and leave safely, even my grandmother, Mu’azaz Skeik, 80, who later died of natural causes in March.

I was suddenly shot at by a tank that was at the gate to the hospital. I got a light, superficial head injury and my right thumb was severed

We stayed in the western part of Gaza City and moved from place to place more than 10 times, because of the heavy bombing and tank shelling. We were displaced about 10 times in the western part of Gaza. But there was nowhere in Gaza City or throughout the Strip. We expected death at any minute. The hunger in the northern Gaza Strip was getting worse and we had a really hard time getting food. We ate very little, and it was a really tough time for me and my family.

In January, I started volunteering as a doctor at a-Shifaa Hospital and treated injured people. People arrived at the hospital with critical injuries: amputated limbs, gunshot wounds, shrapnel injuries from missiles, and burns. A lot of dead bodies also arrived, of course, especially children and women. Some were dismembered.

On 18 March 2024, after volunteering there for about three months, I was sitting with other doctors eating suhur [the Ramadan pre-dawn meal], when we heard planes and tanks and heavy fire. We realized the Israeli military was at the entrance to the hospital. We gathered – doctors and nurses – in one room. We listened to the news to find out what was going on and then I called my parents to reassure them I was fine. The army surrounded the hospital and we didn’t leave the building. We stayed like that until 21 March 2024, and then the army came inside the hospital. The soldiers interrogated the doctors, including me. They checked our identity and asked about work, hospital wards, and about terrorists and militants. Later, the soldiers ordered me to leave the hospital. But when I left, at around 3:00 P.M., I was suddenly shot at by a tank that was at the gate to the hospital. I got a light, superficial head injury and my right thumb was severed.

My jaw got injured and felt like it was broken, and some of my teeth fell out. My whole mouth filled with blood. I tried to tell the soldiers that my jaw was broken, but that only made them all hit me and kick me in the face

I went back to the hospital – this time as a casualty – and was treated. On 23 March 2024, the army permitted patients to be transferred from a-Shifaa Hospital to al-Ahli Hospital (al-Mamdani) in the a-Zeitoun neighborhood, but they arrested me. Maybe I wasn’t listed there as a casualty yet. The soldiers demanded that I strip down to my underwear, tied my hands and blindfolded me, and then took us away in a truck. Seven patients from the hospital were detained along with me. The whole way, they hit us hard with their guns, stomped all over our bodies and swore at us. They also used tasers to give us electric shocks all over our bodies. We got to a detention facility. I didn’t know where it was or what the place was called. When they took us off the truck, they dropped me face down on the ground. My jaw got injured and felt like it was broken, and some of my teeth fell out. My whole mouth filled with blood. I tried to tell the soldiers that my jaw was broken, but that only made them all hit me and kick me in the face. We were there for more than two hours, and they beat and humiliated us the whole time.

Then they transferred us to another detention facility, and again I didn’t know where it was or what the place was called. They beat and cursed us the whole way there. When I got to the detention center, I was examined by a doctor and I explained my condition to him. He said I would get treatment. We were given gray uniforms to wear. Throughout my first week there I couldn’t chew, so I didn’t eat and only drank liquid food that tasted like chocolate milk, as well as water. My hands were also tied in front of me and my eyes were covered. My mouth bled all the time. They set dogs on us and I heard them beating detainees badly nearby. 

After the surgery I stayed in the hospital for about five days. The entire time I was completely naked, in a diaper, with my hands cuffed and my eyes covered

After about a week, they took me to a hospital in an ambulance. I wasn’t told which hospital or where it was. I had surgery there, with my hands and feet tied to the bed and my eyes covered. I was under full anesthesia, so I don’t know how long the surgery lasted. They didn’t tell me what they did, so I wasn’t even sure if they’d operated on me. But I felt metal wires had been put in my mouth. After the surgery I stayed in the hospital for about five days. The entire time I was completely naked, in a diaper, with my hands cuffed and my eyes covered. I was only given chocolate-flavored liquid food to drink, and then they took me back to the detention facility. Throughout the detention, I was forced to sit on the floor, handcuffed and blindfolded. They didn’t take my poor state of health into consideration at all. We were only allowed to sleep six hours a night, and sometimes the soldiers woke us up at night, with banging on the barbed wire fence and dogs barking. The facility only had one restroom for 120 people, and we stood in line to get in there. I was given food three times a day – the chocolate-flavored liquid. They let us shower once or twice a week, for two minutes at a time, four of us together in the shower. 

On 1 May 2024, at 2:00 A.M., my name was called. Then they took me and 72 other people on a bus to the Kerem Shalom Crossing. We got to the Palestinian side of the crossing and were received there by the Red Cross and UNRWA. They provided first aid and gave us water and food. Because my family is still in the north, I went to the house that my aunt, who was displaced from Gaza with her family, rents there. 

Later, because the army invaded Rafah, we were displaced from there to the a-Zawayda area in the center of the Gaza Strip. We’re still here, in a tent with my aunt’s family. The conditions are very tough, but not as bad as the detention. I still need surgery on my thumb, and in my jaw I need the fractures set, dental implants and plastic surgery. The options are really limited here, and dental implants are impossible.

I went back to work at al-Awda Hospital in a-Nuseirat, to complete the hours for my internship – which will count toward my studies. The situation at al-Awda Hospital is catastrophic. There’s a shortage of all sorts of treatment and most needs can’t be met. I’m working on the maternity ward and am seeing a high percentage of miscarriages and premature births. Many women arrive malnourished and dehydrated to give birth. 

My parents are still in the north of the Gaza Strip and it’s really hard for me that they’re far away. I hope to rejoin them. I think about them all day and call them almost every day to hear how they’re doing. The situation in northern Gaza is really tough. They live in constant fear of the ongoing bombing, day and night, and are suffering from a food shortage. They can’t get any meat or vegetables at all. 

The detention really affected me. I was close to completing my medical studies and getting certified. The army detained me for no reason and then soldiers beat me and degraded me. They didn’t even file charges against me. It makes you feel worthless, that you don’t have the basic rights every human being deserves. We don’t know what will happen to us, and I have no idea if I’ll be able to complete my studies with Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza.

  * Testimony given to B’Tselem field researcher Olfat al-Kurd on 23 June 2024