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WARNING: The story contains details of a man being burned.
Muhammad Ahmad Al-Dalu was sleeping in a tent outside Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip early on Monday when he heard the sound of an airstrike right next to him.
He stepped out of his tent and was immediately surrounded by thick, billowing smoke.
Within minutes, the 17-year-old’s older brother and mother were both killed, and his three siblings and father were all rushed to different hospitals in serious condition.
“I went outside to see what was happening, and I found my brother burning in the fire and my father trying to get my younger siblings out,” Al-Dalu told CBC News on Tuesday.
“My brother had both hands to heaven.”
His brother, 20-year-old Shaaban Al-Dalu, was burned alive in the fire. A video of his death circulated widely on social media platforms on Monday, showing Shaaban with his hands raised under falling debris and cables as tents were set on fire by the rocket attacks. CBC News has seen the footage and has chosen not to show it due to its graphic nature.
Shaaban and his mother Alaa Al-Dalu were among four Palestinians killed in the Israeli airstrike that hit a makeshift tent camp housing forcibly displaced people on the grounds of Al-Aqsa Hospital around 1:30 am. Dozens of others were injured in the attack.
“I saw my brother on fire, right in front of me, and my father on fire, and all my brothers and sisters on fire, right in front of me,” said Muhammad Ahmad Al-Dalu.
“People held me down and refused to release me to help my father. I screamed and screamed at nothing. Everything that was in me, I came out.”
His brother screamed for help as he was consumed by the flames, a video showed.
“Put yourself in my shoes: you see your brother being burned alive and people are holding you back, what do you do?”
IDF says fire was likely due to ‘secondary explosions’
In a statement, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said it carried out a “precise attack” on Sunday night on a Hamas command and control center near a parking lot next to the hospital, although it provided no evidence of its existence. center.
“Shortly after the strike, a fire broke out in the hospital parking lot, most likely due to secondary explosions.”
It says the incident is under investigation.
Israel launched its ground offensive against Hamas after October 7, 2023, when the militant group led an attack on Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostage into Gaza, according to Israeli figures.
The ensuing war has since killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, according to Palestinian counts.
Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been displaced and much of the enclave destroyed as the ongoing war has led to severe shortages of food, clean water and medicine.
Children screamed as the fire consumed the displaced Palestinians: witness
Shaaban had miraculously survived an earlier Israeli attack, Al-Dalu said, on October 6 at Al-Aqsa Mosque. He had fallen asleep in the mosque while reciting the Quran, and escaped the attack with only minor injuries – unaware that he would be killed in another just over a week later.
When the fire broke out after Monday’s strike, Al-Dalu said his father was the only one awake from the family, and he quickly rescued his younger brother before trying to withdraw the rest of the family.
Israel is facing renewed criticism after airstrikes in Gaza killed several civilians, including people at a U.N.-run school that distributes polio vaccines. Meanwhile, there is anger in Lebanon after a deadly airstrike in the north. Israel vowed to continue attacks on Hezbollah across the country.
Footage captured by CBC’s freelance videographer Mohamed El Saife shows rescuers scrambling to save people in the blaze as they struggle to control the blaze.
“We tried to go in and rescue them, but the fire had them in its grasp,” said Al-Dalu’s uncle, Mahmoud Al-Dalu.
Mahmoud Wadi says he saw Shaaban, his friend, die in the fire.
“There was nothing we could do for him,” Wadi told CBC News on Monday. “He was charred right before our eyes and there was nothing we could do for him.”
He said he witnessed neighbors on fire as children screamed.
“People are being treated in hospitals – here we are being burned in hospitals.”
Most tents, vehicles and supplies in the area, including food, were destroyed by the fire.
The attack comes as northern Gaza sees Israeli forces closing in
Monday’s attack comes as UN Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the number of civilian casualties in northern Gaza. The UN estimates that around 400,000 civilians remain trapped following evacuation orders, which the IDF repeatedly issued as its forces approached the region. Palestinians and UN agencies are increasingly concerned that the Israeli army wants to expel residents from the north of the crowded enclave.
The northern part of Gaza, where more than half of the territory’s population lives, was heavily bombed during the first phase of the Israeli assault on the area.
That same day, the White House National Security Council spokesman said Israel has a responsibility to do more to ensure that Palestinian civilians are not harmed by its attacks on Hamas in connection with the tent attacks.
“The images and video of displaced civilians being burned alive after an Israeli airstrike are deeply disturbing and we have made our concerns clear to the Israeli government,” the spokesperson said on Monday.
“Israel has a responsibility to do more to prevent civilian casualties – and what happened here is horrific, even as Hamas operated near the hospital in an attempt to use civilians as human shields.”
Shaaban was the ‘rose of the family’
The remaining siblings of Al-Dalu and his father are now dispersed and recovering in various hospitals in Gaza. In an interview Tuesday, he said he is praying for their recovery.
His older brother Shaaban was the “rose of the family,” he said, a software engineering student who had memorized the Quran.
In their last conversation, just a few hours before the strike, Shaaban told him that he was going to sleep after the Isha prayer, one of the five obligatory daily Islamic prayers. Shaaban said he should also pray before going to sleep.
“That’s the last time I saw my brother.”
