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Deir al-Balah, Gaza – Mohammed Sukkar is now safe – or safe – but while the team at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah is working to help him, he is still in tears as he recounts his experience at Al-Shifa Hospital. She is coming.
After several days of siege and then detention by Israeli forces in the Shifa compound, along with dozens of others, the 27-year-old man was injured and took off his clothes and fled south.
“I was displaced from al-Shujaiya, in the east of Gaza, which was destroyed and after being displaced I was volunteering in the hospital,” Sukkar told Al Jazeera, sitting under some thick brown blankets on the floor. He was lying on a makeshift pallet made of wood.
“Late on Monday night… there was a fierce exchange of fire when Israeli tanks were moving towards the hospital,” he said.
“We didn't know what was happening. The Israeli army, through loudspeakers, ordered us to stay inside the complex buildings and not to move at all.
Sukkar and dozens of other displaced people – many of them families with children – were trapped for four harrowing days in the Shifa building, along with sick people.
“We had no water or food. We were starving and very afraid of the artillery fire. All we could hear through loudspeakers was the army making noise, shooting people and burning buildings around us,'' he said.
“We didn’t even think about going out.”
'Waving the white flag'
As the siege continued and thirst set in, some of the trapped men decided to break out, waving white flags.
Sukkar recalled, “We gathered – men, women, children and elders – waving white flags and moving cautiously.”
“The army opened fire, forcing us to beg for safe passage, and told them we wanted out because we were starving and had no water.
“The soldiers insisted that we return to the building, but then, a few minutes later, they said that all the men should stop and fall into line and the women should gather and go south.”
The soldiers stripped the men of their clothes, placed their hands above their heads, handcuffed them and blindfolded them.
“For four days we remained stuck in the hospital courtyard freezing without food or water,” he said, until a doctor came and gave him some medicine.
Sukkar continued, “If we asked for anything, the soldiers would shout at us, hit us with their shoes, spit on us and insult us with the most horrible words.”
Eventually, the soldiers released some of the captives and ordered them to head south without clothing or belongings.
“We began strolling in the direction of Al-Rashid Road. I used to be with 5 younger prisoners and we had been all shivering with chilly and worry. The streets had been filled with tanks and troopers, there have been our bodies on the bottom – however we stored going, our palms raised above our heads.''
“After we reached an Israeli checkpoint, the troopers stopped us, let the others go however arrested me,” Sukkar mentioned.
“I attempted to ask the place they had been taking me, however they beat me. There have been about 10 troopers there, all of whom had been kicking me and hitting my physique with metallic rods.”
After attacking him, the troopers requested Sukkar to go away, however he was crushed so badly that he was not in a position to stroll. So that they loaded him right into a army jeep and dumped him close to the checkpoint.
“My palms and legs had been very painful and bleeding. I used to be crawling till a passerby noticed me, gave me first help and took me to the hospital.
'Excessive Terror'
Mohammed Marshoud, a skinny, 25-year-old man arriving at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in an ambulance, had a wad of soiled medical cotton caught to the facet of his head.
He was injured when Israeli forces shelled his household house situated within the neighborhood of Al-Shifa hospital, the place he lived with 15 members of the family, together with his aged mother and father, his sisters, their youngsters and a few cousins. Have been staying.
After an ordeal lasting a number of days, Marshoud was in a position to escape southward along with his cousin, each of them badly wounded and stripped of all their garments. He doesn’t know the destiny of any of the remaining members of his household.
It was solely when emergency response groups discovered them that they had been in a position to give them blue plastic robes to guard them a bit from the chilly.
“We had been shocked by Israeli tanks once we had been sleeping,” Marshoud mentioned of the day the siege started round al-Shifa.
“We received able to run however once I opened the door there have been tanks at our door.
“Everybody was in excessive panic. We had been crouched in a small hall, unable to maneuver throughout all the shoot. Kids had been crying and girls had been screaming out of worry. We had been certain we’d all die.”
Artillery shells burst into the home, wounding Marshoud, his cousin, and his aged father, all of whom suffered shrapnel wounds to the top and again.
“We weren’t in a position to name an ambulance. “We crawled round the home to seize items of clothes or medical gauze so we may cease the bleeding from our wounds,” mentioned Marshoud, who works as a nurse.
Israeli troopers stormed the home and arrested everybody inside, together with Marshoud's 70-year-old father.
“I had ready for this second, writing an indication in English for the kids to carry; It mentioned: We’re solely residents and kids. Please assist us,” Marshoud mentioned.
“However they didn't care, they only arrested these folks and ordered us to take off our garments.”
The troopers took Marshoud, his father, and his cousin to a close-by constructing the place they detained different folks.
“Our wounds had been nonetheless bleeding. The place was filled with damaged stones and so they made us sleep on them,” he mentioned.
“They beat us badly, pulled my chest hair and tortured me. They don't allow us to go to the bathroom…some folks moist themselves there.”
After 5 days of detention, Marshahoud and his cousin had been launched and ordered to go south.
“There have been loads of tanks there. Quadcopters had been hovering over us, lifeless our bodies had been on the streets.”
“I can solely take into consideration my household… I can't contact them, I don't know the place they’re.”