Palestinians narrate the tragedy of searching for their relatives in Gaza

A month has passed since 42 members of his family were martyred,.Young  Iyad Ghaidan did not lose hope in searching for his elderly mother, whose fate is unknown, following the Israeli occupation’s bombing of their house in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in Gaza City  .

Iyad’s situation is similar to the families of 7,000 missing persons whose fate is unknown in the Gaza Strip.

Are those missing people martyrs under the rubble of more than half a million homes that were bombed by air, land and sea, or among those detained by the occupation forces.

Ghaidan recounts the moments of pain and tragedy that befell him at the moment of the martyrdom of all his family members, “his only brother, his children, his sisters, and their children,” saying: “I was outside the house at the moment of the bombing.I received the news of their martyrdom from one of my neighbors… 42 martyrs, including 29 children, the youngest of whom is my niece, Judy, who is only 6 years old. She was found under the rubble of the house, holding a chair that might save her from the hell of the Israeli occupation missiles that killed her with all her family members, her mother, father, and seven brothers and sisters.

Ghaidan added: “I did not participate in the funeral of the bodies of my family members because I was displaced to the city of Rafah at that time, in the south of the Gaza Strip. I only saw their features through the media, their faces were charred and their innocent bodies turned into pieces.

Ghaydan, who lives in an UNRWA shelter in Rafah, confirms that until this moment he does not know the fate of his mother, whether she was she outside the house at the time of the bombing or was she martyred with her children and grandchildren, as the paramedics did not find her body inside the house that was leveled, indicating that her survival is the hope that depends on him.

For his part, Muhammad Shabat from Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip points out that there are more than 700 missing people in the city , where the people are risking their lives by returning to it to search for their family members , as the occupation forces target them with bullets, indicating that he was able to reach Beit Hanoun where he found it turned into piles of rubble unable to distinguish between its roads and its streets.

Shabat said: ” In Beit Hanoun alone, during the past few days, 10 residents of the city who were on a search for their family members were martyred.

The occupation continues to commit atrocities and crimes in the Gaza Strip,  while the international community remains silent about them, but definitely is a direct partner in crime.

Leen Al Salman