Below is an account by Mahmoud Abu Riash, a young man in Gaza. Since November 2024, I’ve been trying to get his story published. January 2025 is the last time he told it to me and March 2025, our communications became infrequent.
I wanted to publish his story somewhere. Please donate to him here.
When my father was admitted into hospital, we never thought that he wouldn’t come out. It was March 2024 when he complained about his heart so we took him to Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza. But what happened next changed the trajectory of our family forever.
As Palestinians in northern Gaza, life has always been difficult. We’ve lived through generations of occupation, including Israel detaining us in what is effectively an open air prison.
They use checkpoints to stop us from moving to certain areas and to keep us in check. They also control our purchases and employment possibilities. But I was determined to prosper, so I became an engineering student. I wanted to be successful and provide for my family – elevating us from our modest life and house.
Nevertheless, my entire family of nine – including my brothers, sisters, brother-in-law, nephews and parents – were content. Then our entire world came crumbling down on October 7, 2023.
I remember it exactly – it was 6am and I woke up to the sound of missiles and people screaming in the streets. For a moment, I thought it was the end of the world. We stayed in our home for as long as we could, but it didn’t take long for Israeli soldiers to evacuate us.
In November 2023 my entire family moved to Khalifa bin Zayed School in the city of Beit Lahia (near the northern border). No one knew where to go or what to do, so we followed groups and masses – all of whom were as clueless as us.
It didn’t take long – a month – until Israeli soldiers stormed the school. Food was cut off and people were tortured – it felt like there was no escape. They separated the men from the women in the middle of the night and arrested some people, including my sister’s husband.
We haven’t seen him since.
Some of those who had taken sanctuary in the school managed to escape, but Israeli soldiers shot at them. We didn’t know what to do – we watched scenes of horror unfold in front of us, from inside the school, but we had no choice. We had to run too.
We bolted out and ran in the streets with no plan and in complete panic. We heard shots firing all around us as we got away. We didn’t know where we were going, but we didn’t care either – we just had to escape.
We moved into another Beit Lahia school days later – while we were there, no one left the building because all we could hear were planes and the bombing. Exhaustion took hold. We were starved and our bodies couldn’t take much more. Many became desperate for food, and risked their lives to find some.
A man in the school told my brother, Ibrahim, about some flour he knew in a building not far from us, so Ibrahim decided to go and get it. When Ibrahim walked towards that building, we watched as he was bombed and martyred in January 2024.
All these deaths started to numb me. I felt nothing.
By March, my father became sick, so that’s when my brothers and I carried him to Al-Shifa Hospital. He had severe inflammations on his back, which caused his heart muscle to weaken.
A week after he was admitted, I was standing outside the hospital waiting for my mother and brother to come out after visiting him, when – as I stood there – the complex was surrounded by Israeli soldiers.
It was 18 March 2024 and they had placed the entire building under siege.
I was helpless, watching in horror while Israeli soldiers detained medics and explosions emanated from inside.
My mother and brother were now stuck inside while visiting my father – he had been receiving health care in the hospital that week before the army besieged the hospital, and they were visiting him at the time.
On the last day of the siege, on another side of the building, Israeli soldiers ordered all women to evacuate the hospital and line up outside – my mother was one of them. Some women had been beaten and blackmailed by the army, but luckily she was okay.
They ordered them to go towards southern Gaza, where the Netzarim checkpoint separates the north from the south. I spotted my mother as she was moving with a group of women from round the corner of the hospital. When she saw me, we held each other for what felt like forever.
That’s when she told me what happened. According to her, when the Israeli soldiers infiltrated the hospital, they immediately arrested my brother. He has been imprisoned with them since – I don’t know if he’s dead or alive. And my father was still in the hospital, but they had beaten him.
Any contact we had with my father was cut off. It was a devastating time for my family, not knowing what was happening to my brother and father. When the Israeli soldiers finally withdrew on April 1, we rushed into the hospital, frantically trying to find him.
Climbing over the dead bodies of other people’s loved ones, I finally saw him on the ground and my heart dropped. He had been severely beaten, his leg amputated and his body covered in blood.
He was dead. When I saw him, it felt like my life was over.
Life for my family and I has gotten harder ever since. I have no home, and now I’m scared I will have no family left. We now live in tents in northern Gaza, and every day of this war has been traumatising. While I’m lucky to have all my limbs, I feel numb and terrified at the same time. I feel like I’m waiting to die.
Now my mother’s sick with burns and we can’t afford her medication. As the oldest, I have become the sole breadwinner of the entire family – they look onto me to take care of them – so I have started a gofundme to help us escape this genocide.
Israel is killing entire families, but we have no resources to protect ourselves. The attacks have been incessant and we have been pleading for a ceasefire. I want my simple life back – I want to graduate, to have a career and I want happiness for my family. I don’t ever want to see them cry again.
Please don’t forget me
As told to Sharan Dhaliwal, by Mahmoud Abu Riash, from Gaza, in Nov 2024.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Once called the CEO of South Asians, Sharan works as an editor, journalist, author, speaker, producer, consultant, activist and no she won’t promote your brand on Instagram. Kim, there's people that are dying.
She founded Burnt Roti magazine and Middlesex Pride. Her first book Burning My Roti was released in 2022, and she’s working on more top secret projects.
She is working towards becoming a queer historian.
Free Palestine.
