There were moments, before the Israeli air attacks on Gaza shattered the ceased the fire of two months on March 18, when Huda Abu Tirir and his family could almost believe that things could return to normal.
After fleeing their home to a refuge for the displaced people, and then to a tent, another refuge and for another camp during 15 months of war-sei or seven movements in all-they returned to their house in Abasan Al-Kabira, in the south-east of Gaza, where they lived with the grandparents of Huda.
At home a few weeks ago, Huda, 19 years old, organized a party for her cousins, said a cousin, Fatma al-Shawwaf, 20 years old. The other girls have made fun of Huda: shouldn’t you study? Huda, who was destined to become an nurse, always seemed to study. But Huda replied that she liked her to have fun too.
The day before the Israeli air attacks resumed, Huda asked her uncle Nour, who taught technology, if he could help her overcome the material for her high school exams. He promised her a study session the following evening, he said.
But around midnight, the brother of Huda Abdullah, 15 years old, felt an explosion. “What was this?” He screamed from his father, who had no time to answer before the next explosion, this time above his head and under their feet at once.
Abdullah was sent to fly on the roof of a neighbor, he said. Pieces of the house that had grown up in a steaming around him. He felt severe pain in his right eye and couldn’t see much. He could just scream: “I’m here! You feel?”
Surprised by explosions and screams, a cousin who lived nearby, Qasim, 35 years old, ran along the road through the dark. The four -story house that the grandparents of Huda and Abdullah had built almost three decades ago had almost collapsed, he said, the upper floors inserted themselves on top of the lower ones.
Using his phone as a torch, Qasim entered and saw Huda’s grandmother, Shawqia, 63, which lay in the rubble, bleeding. He was not moving.
Others who lived there had been launched out of the strength of the explosion, said Qasim. Everywhere, people bleed from the nose or ears.
Huda was one of the eight killed, together with her parents: Asmmaa, 35 years old, who had taken care of all the Abu Teir every time Shawqia went to Egypt for the treatment of thyroid cancer and Mohammed, 42 years old, who worked as a security officer on the Rafah border crossing Hamas’ guided government, said the relatives.
The cousin of Huda Anas, 13 years old, breathed when they found it. But an ambulance did not arrive for almost an hour, said Qasim.
Anas died waiting. Even his two younger sisters, Jana, 11, and Leen, 6 years old, and his mother, Fulla Abu Tir, 29, were killed.
Shawqia was also dead. Her husband, Suleiman, had died at the beginning of the war, said the relatives, when his heart condition slipped after a nearby air attack.
“We would never have thought that so huge attacks would happen again,” said Qasim two days later at the European hospital in Gaza near Khan Youunis. “We thought the fights had exhausted both sides and that war would not start again.”
The Israeli army claimed to have targeted a Hamas agent that “remained inside a building” March 18, but did not identify the person or specified if it meant the abbot house. The family members said there was no reason why they would be targeted.
Gaza has started to count his daily dead. The Israeli aircraft attacks that night killed more than 400 people and since then killed over 600, said the Ministry of Health of Gaza. The Ministry’s data do not distinguish between civil and fighters, although Hamas has publicly announced the death of several high officials in the initial attacks last month.
Israel said he had renewed air attacks on Hamas sites and agents to force the group to release more Israeli hostages after Hamas Reduce new Israeli requests.
An investigation by the New York Times discovered that the Israeli army has loosened its rules on how many civilians can endanger with each air attack in search of Hamas fighters, who according to Israel are incorporated among civilians.
Last Wednesday, the Israeli Minister of Defense, Israel Katz, announced that he would have expanded his military offensive to Gaza, adding to the threats that affect the population there.
Overall, the health officials of Gaza say, over 50,000 people have been killed since the war began in October 2023, after an attack led by Hamas to Israel who killed around 1,200 people and took about 250 more. Israel’s response has crushed entire families, entire neighborhoods, Gaza health system, its educational institutions, its infrastructure and most of its economy.
Abdullah, Huda’s 15 -year -old brother, knew little about what happened that night two weeks ago. After the air attack, he managed to put aside the broken water tank and the heating panel on which he was trapped before obscuring, he said two days later. He woke up in the hospital, singing both eyes, his still blurred vision.
Nobody had yet told him that Huda had died, or to his parents, or that his brother Maher was in intensive care.
Abdullah was the third of five. His father had fallen in love with his mother, cousin, when they were still teenagers. In a society in which most marriages are arranged, the relatives observed on the visible tenderness of Mohammed and Asmaa, said Qasim, cousin.
The family was everything. Mohammed has always organized great birthday parties for children. And when one of Mohammed’s sisters, also called Huda, was recovering from a cesarean cut, Asmaa wet and cooked for her as if she were her sister, she recalled her sister.
Qasim remembered Mohammed who broke out of pride when his eldest daughter, Bayan, married. He jokingly asked Huda if he wanted to get married later, even before graduating, as some girls from Gaza did.
Huda flew to anger, remembered his sister Amira. It was the type of child who scribbled “Huda nurse in the future” in his notebooks. He also loved weddings and shopping – for skin care, for elegant clothes. But the wedding could wait.
Their grandmother was more traditional. Shawqia was the backbone of the family, dispensing food cooked in the house and helps someone every time he needed it and rely on his faith for strength, said his family.
Before the war, the family did not wait every year before Ramadan, when Shawqia invited everyone for a giant meal in the garden before they started their daily fast for the Holy Month. Maftoul, a Palestinian couscous dish, was his specialty, he recalled his family: no one else was allowed to do it or to play with the spices he put us.
When the Abu Ters were repairing in the southern city of Rafah at the beginning of last year, Shawqia took the daily habit of visiting the family of every son and daughter in their respective tents to check -in, said his daughter Huda. He sat down and helped his grandchildren to memorize the verses of the Koran, giving them dates and biscuits.
At one point during the war, the Abu Teirs took refuge with another family in the center of Gaza. Grateful, Shawqia’s husband, Suleiman, promised to repay them when peace has returned, said his son Nour.
Suleiman died shortly after. But Shawqia recalled their promise.
At the beginning of this month, he made several lots of Maftoul and asked one of his children to deliver them to the family that had hosted them. He was killed a week later.