Mohammad*
36 years old. Married. 2 girls and 1 boy. He lost his boy, 8 years old. May 2021 war patient.
It was the first day of the bombings. I was outside my house with my son, when a missile hit the car, less than a meter from us. I don’t remember exactly the order of things, but then I saw my legs were completely injured. When I looked to the side, my boy was not awake. His abdomen was open, and both his hands were gone. I started to scream. My wife and my two daughters were in the house and came running. They were also screaming. There were so many people injured around us and no ambulances at sight.
The neighbors were taking the dead and injured in their cars, rushing to the hospital. My son went first in a car, but I think he was already dead by then. There was no space for me in that car. I was carried to another one, with three other severely injured people. I had to go in the trunk with my legs hanging out. The road to the hospital was like seeing hell on earth. Everywhere we looked was destroyed, fires all over the place, bombs kept dropping from the sky. Half of Gaza was bombed.
It was not like any other war I’ve seen before. They were targeting civilians, there was nowhere to run. Flames were everywhere. After that, my family was completely destroyed. My wife left me; she had a mental breakdown from which she never recovered. She blamed me for the death of our only son. Only one of my daughters stayed with me and now she is always standing with me, next to my hospital bed.
It’s one year now and I’m still trapped in a hospital bed. I’ve been through so many surgeries and interventions that I lost count. I think I might have broken the record of number of surgeries – (he says with a smile). I’m smiling because there is nothing else I can do, I need to smile.