‘Our neighbours burned alive’: The bombing of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital

Deir el-Balah, Gaza, Palestine – Amani Madi inactive can’t judge she and her household survived the bombing that deed Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital successful the mediate of the night.

In the unfastened abstraction wherever the onslaught connected displaced people’s tents took spot aboriginal connected Monday, the odor of fume prevails, and burned cans and nutrient are scattered connected the crushed among charred blankets and clothes.

People rotation backmost and forth. Most of them utilized to unrecorded successful the tents, and they are trying to find thing near down by the blaze that destroyed their flimsy homes.

Bodies connected occurrence arsenic they ran

The onslaught tore done the makeshift campy acceptable up by displaced radical successful the hospital’s courtyard, sidesplitting astatine slightest 4 radical and injuring astatine slightest 40.

Madi shows her lad Ahmed’s coiled wherever shrapnel entered his body, but doctors were not capable to region it due to the fact that Gaza’s aesculapian facilities person been decimated by Israeli attacks [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]

“It was 1:10am erstwhile a monolithic detonation shook everything,” Madi, a 37-year-old parent of six, recalls arsenic she sits successful the remains of her burned tent.

“I looked retired and saw flames devouring the tents adjacent to ours,” Madi says. “My hubby and I carried the kids and ran towards the exigency building.

“At the entrance, I saw my five-year-old son, who was screaming, was bleeding. I took him to the doctors to observe that helium had shrapnel successful his stomach.”

The doctors were capable to bandage Ahmed up but had to permission the shrapnel wherever it had deed him, explaining to Madi that it would necessitate delicate country to remove, a country that is not imaginable fixed the severely damaged Gaza aesculapian sector.

The demolition caused erstwhile Israel bombed a displaced people’s campy successful the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital successful Deir el-Balah, Gaza [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]

Many Palestinians displaced aggregate times extremity up astatine schools and hospitals, mounting up tents again and again, utilizing immoderate materials they tin find, clustering adjacent unneurotic owed to a deficiency of space.

Israel’s bombs dispersed occurrence done the crowded tents wrong minutes arsenic Civil Defence workers struggled to enactment it retired with what constricted capabilities they had.

“People – women, men and children – were moving distant from the spreading fire, screaming,” Madi says. “Some of them were inactive burning, their bodies connected occurrence arsenic they ran. Terrifying, horrific, … unbelievable.

“Where are we expected to go? It’s astir winter. Is determination nary 1 to halt this holocaust against us?”

Jamalat Wadi sits among the demolition near by Israel’s bombing of a displacement campy successful the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital connected October 14, 2024 [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]

Madi’s structure was adjacent to Jamalat Wadi’s tent, which was practically astatine the centre of the bombing.

Wadi, 43, says: “It was a occurrence we survived, maine and my 7 daughters.”

“I woke them up, screaming, arsenic our flaming structure was falling connected our heads.

“My neighbour, her lad and her hubby were burned to death. No 1 could prevention them,” she says, crying bitterly.

Like galore others, Wadi has been forced to fly galore times, starting successful Shujayea, past to Rafah, Nuseirat and Khan Younis earlier seeking refuge astatine Al-Aqsa Hospital.

“Now we’re successful the streets again, but I won’t enactment present aft this. There’s obscurity safe.

“Hospitals and schools are astatine the forefront of Israeli targeting. What person we done to merit this?”

Madi walks with her children done the demolition caused by the bombing [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]

‘A limb fell to the ground’

Maha Al-Sarsak, 17, lives successful a structure adjacent to the ones that burned. Her family’s structure was not affected, but she witnessed the archetypal moments of the detonation and fire.

Al-Sarsak walks done the carnage near down by the bombing, crying.

She has been displaced astatine Al-Aqsa with her household for 9 months.

After the infirmary grounds were targeted galore times, she says, she stopped sleeping astatine nighttime for fearfulness of different Israeli bombing.

“I was awake. What I feared happened … for the seventh time. I heard the onslaught from the absorption of the tents other us. I screamed for my parent and my [eight] siblings, and we ran retired towards the infirmary building.”

Maha speaks to Al Jazeera astir the onslaught [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]

“I saw our neighbour Umm Shaaban [Alaa Al-Dalu, 37] wholly burned and her assemblage charred on with her lad [Shaaban, 20].

“When they were moving the victims from there, I saw a limb autumn to the ground,” Al-Sarsak adds arsenic she cries.

“They said the southbound is safe, but determination is nary safety. People were burned alive, and we spent a precise terrifying night. Every clip the infirmary is targeted, we’re terrified,” Al-Sarsak says.

“But past nighttime was the astir terrifying. The occurrence ate the tents and people’s bodies successful moments. Oh, God, person mercy.”

Displaced radical scrabble done the charred remains of their structure homes to spot what they tin retrieve [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]