An Eid celebration on a Gaza rooftop turns into a āhorror movieā
Israelās continued attacks on homes in Gaza are contributing to the ongoing genocide in the enclave. Gaza City ā On the first day of Eid
Israelās continued attacks on homes in Gaza are contributing to the ongoing genocide in the enclave. Gaza City ā On the first day of Eid al-Adha, Widad Al-Husari, 31, sat with her husband, children, and extended family on a rooftop in Gaza City, trying to create a sense of holiday spirit amid an ongoing war and displacement. The family had dinner, then shared sweets, while the children, dressed in new clothes, played in their tent erected on the terrace until an explosion shattered the evening silence. Widad rushed to the tent and picked up her three-year-old son, Rafiq, but in the panic, they plummeted through a hole caused by a missile that had penetrated the building. The rest of the family followed her screams and found Widad clinging to her child and hanging from metal rods protruding from masonry several floors below. Underneath them, a fire raged, caused by a warhead that had detonated just seconds earlier. āI didnāt notice the openingsā¦ It was dark everywhere and smoke filled the place. I was only holding my child when I suddenly fell with him into an opening,ā Widad told Al Jazeera. Widad points to three holes in the middle of the terrace, where the missiles struck, one of them the gap she had fallen through. āI could feel the heat of the fire beneath meā¦ Everyone was screaming, smoke filled the place, and I was hanging [from the metal rods] until my husband and brothers managed to pull me out with my child,ā she said. āWhen they [pulled] the iron rods cut my body, my legs, and my back.
I lived through moments of hell, like a horror movie, and I still suffer from severe pain and fear to this moment. We were sitting eating Eid sweets, then suddenly everything turned into screams.ā The strike killed seven people, including two children and two women. Eighteen were injured, including her four-year-old niece, Sara al-Khalout, who was thrown by the blast onto the courtyard below. She was seriously injured and is still being treated in an intensive care unit. Sixty-year-old Zuhdia Azzam, who lived in one of the lower floors of the building, was with her family receiving guests for Eid when a missile struck. In a single moment, her 12-year-old granddaughter, Sidra, was killed, and another granddaughter, Sham, 11, had her leg amputated. āThe situation was completely calm until we heard a huge explosionā¦ We all rushed to the upper floor where both granddaughters had gone just moments earlier,ā Azzam told Al Jazeera. āWe found one of them killed and the other holding her leg that had been cut off. She was crawling. It does not matter to Israel whether it is Eid, an occasion, or a densely populated civilian area ā suddenly [a missile] is above your head.ā āNo safe placeā The familyās experiences are similar to those of thousands of others in Gaza, who escaped one war zone for another during the 31-month genocide, with drones and warplanes appearing to stalk their every movement. Widad and her family once lived in a comfortable home in the Zeitoun neighbourhood of eastern Gaza City, until it was destroyed in November 2023, a month into Israelās genocidal war on Gaza.
The BriefWire