The Palestinian Center For Human Rights (PCHR): Neveen Mohammed al-Dawawsah (21), a female paramedic and resident of Beit Lahia, north Gaza.
Date of Testimony: 23 October 2024
When the Israeli war started on the Gaza Strip on 07 October 2023, I was living with my family, siblings, my uncles and their families in a 5-storey building. As the raging war intensified amid the relentless air strikes and indiscriminate shells, particularly pounding the surrounding area, I decided to seek refuge in Kamal ‘Adwan Hospital on 20 October 2023 thinking it is a relatively safe place to shelter and for being a paramedic that forced into staying at the hospital all the time due to the war.
On 22 November 2023 while I was at the hospital, one of my colleagues came to inform me that the Israeli Occupying Forces had committed a massacre in Beit Lahia Housing Project, so I headed with other paramedics to the scene to find that the massacre was against my family “al-Dawawsah”, and the missile had targeted our house, the 5-storey building I mentioned before, and completely destroyed it, turning it into a pile of rubble. The bodies of my family were scattered on the street and surrounding area; 80 members of my family, brothers, sisters, uncles and aunts along with their families and displaced people in the building were killed.
First Raid of Kamal ‘Adwan Hospital
In early December 2023, while I was working in Kamal ‘Adwan Hospital, we could hear explosions and gunfire intensifying gradually, paving the way for the military vehicles and IOF to advance towards Kamal ‘Adwan Hospital and its proximity. IOF seized full control of the hospital proximity, surrounding it from all directions and besieging it for 2 days. I remember that the southern backdoor of the hospital was bombed, where there was a room for us, the ambulance team, killing my colleague Ayah al-Jabal.
Two days after the siege on the hospital, the Israeli vehicles retreated without raiding the hospital, and I could leave and sought refuge in a neighbor’s house belonging to Abu al-‘Eish Family in Jabalia refugee camp. At around 01:00 on 21 December 2023, the building where we were staying was bombed while we were inside. A missile directly hit it and completely destroyed the house. I was pulled from under the rubble and sustained minor bruises; however, 30 members of that family were killed and 20 more were injured.
Second Ground Invasion
On 18 March 2024, IOF declared the second military operation in the vicinity of al-Shifa Medical Complex and unexpectedly raided the complex amid their incursion into Jabalia refugee camp and its proximity. Also, IOF declared in air-dropped leaflets evacuation orders for north Gaza residents, urging them to head to the southern Gaza Strip. At the time and for what I had witnessed, I decided to go to Sheikh Redwan neighborhood in Gaza City.
With the beginning of April 2024, I do not remember the exact date, IOF withdrew from the northern Gaza Strip, so I returned to north Gaza and sought shelter in Jabalia Preparatory School for Girls in Jabalia refugee camp. I worked as a paramedic in a medical point at the school and stayed there until I was forcibly displaced in October 2024.
Third Ground Invasion
On 05 October 2024 I was at the school when we suddenly heard shells and bombs relentlessly and consecutively falling on different places in north Gaza while quadcopters were hovering above shooting from time to time amid strong and violent blasts targeting houses. All of that happened in the afternoon as the situation in north Gaza drastically changed. In parallel, IOF published on social media new evacuation orders forcing the north Gaza residents to evacuate immediately to the south. These displacement orders are only paving the way to apply Israel’s so-called “Generals’ Plan” with the aim of depopulating north Gaza and forcibly displacing its residents amid no humanitarian aid entering and destruction of the remaining services and facilities essential for the population’s survival.
I remained at the school until 20 October 2024 during which we could hear explosions everywhere and when night fell, we could hear massive blasts resulting from detonating entire residential blocks. The school was under quadcopters’ continuous fire hitting its yard while shrapnel was scattering all over the place, rendering us scared of leaving the school and even the classrooms due to the heavy shooting.
The humanitarian situation at the school was deplorable. We were 400 displaced families: each 3 in a separate classroom, totaling 30-40 people in one class, mostly children and women, with no minimum healthcare standards or safety.
On 06 October 2024, IOF bombed the main water well supplying the school that is located behind the classrooms, rendering water scarce with each person having only half liter of water daily and struggling to secure water for his family. For food, families tried hard to save as much as possible, fearing the unknown, especially with families having only few cans of food enough for 2 or 3 days.
We tried so hard to keep the medical point operational within the limited resources, so we could handle any emergency at the school. I was on duty providing services to the displaced at school.
When the school was bombed…
At around 09:00 on 20 October 2024, an Israeli quadcopter approached us with a microphone speaking in Arabic: “everyone here, get out. You are in a combat zone. IDF warns you.” At the time, chaos and fear engulfed the school and all the displaced families prepared themselves and packed their belongings to leave, including me, with some of them already leaving. Around 10 minutes later, we heard massive explosions inside the school while I was still in the classroom packing my belongings and the first aid kit so I would be ready to provide aid to whoever needed it during our evacuation. I rushed out of fear to the yard to find all the people there targeted by shells while stones and rubble were filling the place. Tens of dead bodies were scattered in the yard amid injured people’s screams for help; most of them with amputations. At that moment, I held my phone and started recording this heinous crime that had collected the lives of ten and injured forty more. I could provide aid for few but could not do all the work alone amid no medical supplies available except for the first aid kit that I had.
At around 10:30 on that day, I went alone towards Schools Street where I found dead bodies and people injured strewed on the sidewalks. I remember finding a mother with her two children: the mother and her son were dead with the son shredded into pieces while her 4-year-old daughter was still alive. I carried the young girl and walked her after providing her first aid. I remember she was from Shehadah family, and I then handled her to some young men, whom I do not know, and they took her to a medical point.
I arrived near Baghdad Wedding Hall to find people there. I walked towards them to find more than 30 tanks and tens of soldiers, thinking for a moment as if it was a military base. All the tanks were lined up with the soldiers at the street ends. We kept walking and saw the soldiers arresting around 30 persons and 2 women.
We were more than 600 people walking on the street leading to Old Gaza Street with the drones hovering above and photographing us. If the drone hovered and slowed down above a specific person, the latter would be called out by a symbol and not by their name, meaning that arrest was arbitrary. Finally, we could reach Gaza City after walking all the way on Salah al-Deen Street.
