Tel Aviv Tribune Net correspondents
10/4/2024–|Last updated: 10/4/202402:01 PM (Mecca time)
Gaza- “His birth was extremely difficult despite the efforts made by the women who supervised his birth, to the point that the labor moments took more than 3 continuous hours.” With these words, Hossam Salem Deeb, the uncle of the infant Mohammed Salem, the only survivor of his family, began speaking.
The child Muhammad lost his family, which was erased from the civil registry, as his mother, Shaima, his father, Basil, and his brothers were martyred in a massacre committed by the occupation in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in Gaza City in December 2023, which claimed the lives of 120 martyrs, half of whom are still under the rubble.
The child, Muhammad, was born on December 12, 2023, amid a stifling Israeli siege on land and in the air. Snipers were on top of nearby buildings and tanks were everywhere, forcing his mother to give him a primitive birth in the house she had fled to in search of safety, without the slightest health care.
His uncle says, “On the eighth day of his birth, at 6 a.m., the house to which his family had fled was bombed, and his mother and father were martyred, and he remained the only survivor and witness to the massacre that erased his family from the civil registry.”
The child’s uncle continues, “On the day of the attack, I retrieved Muhammad. He was suffocated and his face was filled with dust. I started running with him until I reached the dispensary and was able to save him. We performed a stomach wash for him and put oxygen on him for a quarter of an hour until he was able to catch his breath.”
The child’s aunt, Hala Salem Deeb, who takes care of him and supervises his upbringing, says, “The night of his birth was one of the most difficult nights of the war, as the Israeli occupation army was besieging the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, and no one could leave the house. His mother was pleading with everyone in the house to take her.” To the hospital, but the intensity of the shelling and scattered shells was stronger than them.”
Raising an infant was not easy for his aunt, especially since she was injured and in need of health care. She took care of all his daily details, accompanied by his uncle, in the hope that they would compensate him even with a small portion of his parents’ affection.
The aunt was displaced to Al-Shati camp after the massacre that befell her family, and there was a woman breastfeeding the child Muhammad at first.
Second survivor
On the same day and in the same massacre, Muhammad Sufyan Salem (6 years old), the second survivor, lost his entire family, which was erased from the civil registry. Rafiq Salem, the child’s uncle, Muhammad Sufyan, said, “Suddenly and without warning, tanks surrounded the place and shells were scattered on us. Anyone who left his house was sniped and martyred.”
The neighbors fled to the safe house surrounded by several houses. The owner of the house, Salem Deeb, says, “My house in the middle is protected by the houses located on the outskirts, which prompted the neighbors and my cousins to move there thinking that it would protect them from the horror of the shells that rained down on them as punishment for their steadfastness and refusal to leave the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood. The Israeli occupation army bombed my house and the entire square and killed them.” 120 martyrs.”
The child, Muhammad Sufyan, survived death, but he did not survive the falling shrapnel, and was moderately injured in the head. He was in a bad psychological state due to the intensity of the horror and fear he saw, which affected his ability to speak well, and he began to urinate involuntarily.
Muhammad Sufyan Salem calls out loudly to his mother, father, and siblings, saying, “I want my mother… I want my father.” He goes to a corner alone and cries for his family, not knowing that he has become a lonely orphan who survived the massacre to testify that he is the only survivor of it.
