Gaza Metropolis – On October 19, lots of of displaced Palestinians in northern Gaza’s Hamad College in Beit Lahiya heard what everybody within the Palestinian enclave dreads.
“At daybreak, we heard [Israeli] tanks encircling the varsity, and quadcopters overhead started ordering everybody to get out,” Amal al-Masri, 30, who had given delivery to her youngest daughter so not too long ago she had not named her but when the tanks got here, recalled.
Individuals have been already tense after shelling and explosions all through the night time – the adults too scared to sleep, the youngsters crying in worry and confusion.
“Buildings have been being shelled throughout us,” stated Amal, who lived in a ground- ground classroom along with her husband Yousef, 36, their 5 younger youngsters – Tala, Honda, Assad, and Omar, all aged between 4 and 11, and Yousef’s 62-year-old father Jamil.
Amal had cradled the infant whereas Yousef held two of their youngest youngsters. Collectively, the adults had prayed.
Now, it was daybreak, and a recording of a male voice talking in Arabic performed by way of loudspeakers on a quadcopter circling over the varsity, ordering everybody to come back out with their IDs and fingers up.
The quadcopter shot on the buildings and dropped sound bombs, sending folks right into a panic as they rushed to assemble no matter they may. Some fled with nothing.
Yousef, Amal and the youngsters have been among the many first to get to the schoolyard – Yousef and the 4 youngsters held up their IDs and their fingers, whereas Amal held the infant in her arms.
Within the chaos, Yousef misplaced monitor of his father.
“The quadcopters instructed: ‘Males to the varsity gate, ladies and kids within the schoolyard,’” Amal recalled.
The pit
“There have been troopers on the faculty gate with tanks behind them, and extra troopers surrounding the place,” Yousef stated.
He and different males aged greater than 14 years, together with some he recognised from close by colleges, have been ordered by Israeli troopers to assemble on the fundamental gate in teams, line up and strategy an inspection passage with a digital camera, often called “al-Halaba”.
“Every man was ordered to strategy a board with a digital camera on it, one after the other,” explains Yousef, who thinks the digital camera used facial recognition know-how.
After being registered by the digital camera, the person or boy was despatched to a pit dug by Israeli bulldozers, he says.
Over the subsequent few hours, some males have been launched, others have been despatched to a different pit, whereas some have been interrogated.
As for Yousef, he knelt with about 100 different males in a pit close to the varsity together with his fingers behind his again all day.
“The troopers have been capturing, throwing sound bombs, beating a few of the males, torturing others,” he stated. All through, he apprehensive about his household.
“I used to be deeply apprehensive about my spouse and kids. I didn’t know something about them,” Yousef recounted. “My spouse had given delivery every week in the past and she or he wouldn’t have the ability to stroll with the youngsters. With out anybody to assist, I used to be afraid of what may occur to them.”
When night got here, there have been solely about seven males left within the pit.
Yousef was hungry, drained and apprehensive, then a soldier pointed at him. “He randomly selected me and two different males; we didn’t perceive why,” Yousef advised Al Jazeera.
“The troopers took us to an condo in a close-by constructing,” he stated, including that he thinks they have been close to the Sheikh Zayed roundabout.
The boys have been forbidden from talking to one another, however Yousef had recognised them – a 58-year-old and a 20-year-old who have been sheltering in colleges close to Hamad. All through, he stated, the sound of shelling and bombing echoed round them.
“A soldier advised us we’d be serving to them with some missions and can be launched after, however I used to be afraid they’d kill us at any second,” Yousef stated.
‘Utilizing me for canopy’
Yousef and his exhausted fellow captives dozed off in some unspecified time in the future within the night time, earlier than being jolted awake by the troopers and pushed out of the condo and into the streets.
He quickly realised that the troopers have been strolling behind him, to make use of him as cowl.
“The realisation that I used to be getting used as a human protect was terrifying.”
Once they reached a college that had been emptied by Israeli troopers, he was ordered to open doorways and go into every classroom to verify for fighters who is likely to be hidden there.
The closely armed troopers would solely enter after his “all clear”.
The day continued that means, with Yousef getting used to “clear” room after room, after which the troopers would set the buildings on hearth.
The entire time, Yousef feared a quadcopter would shoot him, or an Israeli sniper may mistake him for a menace and kill him.
When the day’s searches have been full, he was introduced again to the condo with the 2 different males and given the second meal of the day, a chunk of bread and a few water, identical to the morning.
On the fourth day, Yousef and the 58-year-old man have been ordered to go to a close-by faculty and the Kamal Adwan Hospital to ship evacuation leaflets to folks sheltering there.
They got an hour and advised {that a} quadcopter can be hovering overhead. As they handed the leaflets to folks, quadcopters have been asserting the evacuation over loudspeakers.
Escape
Yousef determined he would attempt to escape that day by hiding within the hospital courtyard.
“I used to be afraid to return,” he defined. “I wished to flee and discover out if my household was secure, as I had overheard troopers instructing ladies and kids to move south to Khan Younis.”
He determined to get in a line of males being compelled to evacuate, ready anxiously as time dragged on. The troopers had stated they need to solely be gone for an hour, and it had been a number of.
The road of males was advancing. “I used to be praying they wouldn’t recognise me,” Yousef stated.
Then a soldier sitting atop a tank shot him within the left leg.
“I fell to the bottom. The boys round tried to assist me, however the troopers shouted at them to go away me,” Yousef recollects.
“I clung to one of many males, then a soldier stated to me, scolding: ‘Come on, stand up and lean on this man and head to Salah al-Din Road.’”
Regardless of the ache as he hobbled away, Yousef was in disbelief that the soldier had not killed him. “I anticipated to be killed at any second,” he stated.
Just a little additional on, he was taken by a Palestinian ambulance to al-Ahli Arab Hospital for therapy.
Reuniting
Amal, who had taken the youngsters to the New Gaza College in al-Nasr within the west of Gaza Metropolis, heard sooner or later that Yousef was at al-Ahli Hospital.
She rushed there, relieved after having suffered by way of days of conflicting stories as some folks stated they noticed him detained, whereas others stated that they had seen him elsewhere.
She had barely made it to al-Nasr, she advised Al Jazeera over the cellphone.
On the day the household was separated, she says, the ladies and kids have been stored within the schoolyard for hours.
“My youngsters have been terrified. Many youngsters have been crying. Some have been asking for meals, water. Moms pleaded with troopers for meals and water, however they simply yelled at us and refused.”
Within the afternoon, the Israeli troopers moved the ladies and kids to a checkpoint with a digital camera.
“They advised us to stroll out 5 at a time,” Amal stated, describing how her 11-year-old daughter Tala was held again to hitch the group after her.
“She began crying and calling, ‘Mama, please don’t go away me,’” Amal recounts, her voice shaking.
They have been finally advised to stroll south on Salah al-Din Road.
“The tanks surrounding the varsity have been overwhelming – I believed to myself: ‘God! A complete brigade of tanks has come for these defenceless civilians.’
“My physique was exhausted – I had given delivery solely every week earlier, and I may barely carry my child, a lot much less the few belongings we had.”
As tanks rumbled round them, they kicked up waves of mud and sand. “With all of the mud, I stumbled, and my child lady fell from my arms onto the bottom,” Amal recollects, telling how she screamed and the older youngsters cried when the infant fell.
Finally, she left all their belongings on the street; she was too weary to maintain carrying them. She wanted to get her youngsters someplace secure.
“My four-year-old son didn’t cease crying: ‘I’m drained, I can’t do it.’ We had no meals, no water, nothing.”
Early within the night, she reached New Gaza College with different displaced folks from the north.
Amal, Yousef, and their youngsters are collectively now, in a classroom on the faculty.
Yousef spent two days within the hospital and, after 13 stitches, walks cautiously with a limp.
Yousef’s father Jamil has been lacking because the day the troopers got here to Hamad College. He heard from some folks that his father had been taken prisoner, however he doesn’t know.
Their child daughter, unnamed after they have been compelled to go away northern Gaza, has been named Sumoud, “steadfastness”, an emblem of their refusal to go away.
