Survivors Recount a 'Night of Horror': The Israeli Strike That Set Tents of Displaced Families in Gaza Aflame
The horrific attack has left both the living and the dead unrecognizable.
I am utterly devastated by the footage that came last night from Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah.
It was around 2 a.m. when an Israeli air strike tore through the tents of the displaced, where families, patients receiving treatment, and many of my friends and colleagues were sheltering, casting a horrific, searing glow of fire that soon consumed the place they thought would provide safety.
The people’s cries for help pierced my heart as I watched them stumble through the dense smoke, searching for loved ones amid plumes of smoke that curled up into the sky. The air itself seemed to scream, and the ground burned with the heat of destruction.
What brought me to tears were the wails of people burning alive before they even registered the sounds of the attack. That night has left both the living and the dead beyond recognition.
The first moments
Among the chaos, nurse Amira struggled to reach the patients whose fragile bodies lay in beds just inside the tent perimeter. “I could feel the heat on my skin, smell the burning plastic,” she recalls. “People were running in all directions, and I had to shout over the noise just to be heard.”
“We were asleep, or at least trying to sleep, when the explosions started,” recalls Abu Khalid, a father who lived behind the hospital with his three children. His voice quivers as he describes the scene: “We woke up to smoke and fire. Burning pieces were falling on the tents from every corner. The explosions—I’ve never heard or seen anything like them.”
His children clung to him as they ran, ducking between burning tents, the smell of scorched fabric and flesh overwhelming their senses. Around them, “It was like hell on earth,” he says, his eyes traumatized.
Chaos unfolding
Dr. Anas Wazeer, a volunteer anaesthesia specialist, was at the emergency department door when the first patients arrived. “It was a horror show,” he recounts, his voice cracking under the weight of the memories.
“The burns covered 60 to 80 percent of the bodies that came in—most wouldn’t survive. The air smelled like burned flesh and melting plastic,” he told me.
“It was hard to breathe, hard to see through the smoke and fire. People died trapped between the flames.”
The overwhelmed medical staff struggled to prioritize care. “There were so many people with burns. Their skin was blackened and charred, their eyes open but lifeless.”
“Some were barely clinging to life as we worked to ease their suffering.” Dr. Wazeer pauses, shaking his head. “We didn’t have enough supplies, not even basic pain relief. It was as if we were asked to perform miracles with our hands tied.”
The blaze consumed over 20 tents, collapsing the frail shelters onto families who had nowhere else to go. People attached to IVs were seen burning alive, and others succumbed to smoke inhalation. Those who survived the initial explosion were left with scars that would never heal.
The attack stole more than just lives—it seared away what little hope remained in the hearts of those who had been living on the edge for a year.
Heartbreak amid the ashes
For Osama, a 19-year-old who fled from Beit Lahia, the night etched an indelible scar on his memory. He had been staying in one of the tents closest to the fire when the strike hit. “The heat was unbearable,” he says. “It felt like my skin was peeling off, and the smoke—” his voice falters, “I watched my friend, someone I grew up with, die right in front of me. We were trying to pull people out, but he... he didn’t make it.”
Osama describes the helplessness of that moment, the way he screamed at the sky, his voice drowned out by the roaring flames. “We had nowhere to go. There were no fire trucks, no way to put out the blaze. It just kept burning. There were bodies everywhere.” He struggles to finish his sentence, his hands trembling.
Unending agony
For Amira, a 38-year-old mother of four, the attack was yet another chapter in a year-long journey of displacement and terror. She and her family had fled northern Gaza last year in October, following the evacuation orders issued by the Israeli army to the residents in Gaza City and the north.
“We thought we would be safe here, that the south would shelter us,” she whispers, her voice brittle. “But safety does not exist in Gaza. Not in our homes, not even in hospitals.”
She recalls how her children cried that night, not just from fear but from a coldness that seeped into their bones as they huddled away from the fire. “We had fled our home with nothing, and now, once again, we have nothing,” Amira says.
“This is not a life. It’s like the world is trying to erase us, as if we have no place anywhere.”
The assault was the third time in two weeks that the Al-Aqsa Hospital had been targeted, according to Gaza’s Media Office. The recurring strikes left an indelible message to the displaced—there was nowhere left to run.
Echoes of loss — and hope
Inside what remained of the hospital courtyard, the charred ground bore silent testimony to the devastation. The tents are now little more than blackened cloth and twisted metal.
The grief was compounded by the sheer inhumanity of the people’s loved ones’ final moments. “It wasn’t just death,” Dr. Wazeer reflects. “It was suffering—slow, excruciating suffering. That’s what haunts me.”
For many, the scars—both visible and invisible—may never heal. With each passing day, those dreams slip further from reach, replaced by the stark reality of their suffering—caught between endless trauma and the faint glimmer of hope for a peaceful tomorrow that doesn’t seem to be coming anytime soon.
Yet despite the devastation and heartbreak, Amira speaks with a spirit of resilience. “We are still here,” she says, “and we will keep hoping, even if it’s all we have.”
🤲🏼😞🙏🏼🇵🇸
This took me to a place I could never imagine being other than hell , I cry every time I think of it and feel so helpless in this time of absolute and utter destruction. What can we do , what can we say only suffer in our hearts with them .