Until the war broke out, I lived with my husband and my children: Ayman, 23, his wife Hind, 22, who’s seven months pregnant, ‘Abdallah, 22, Lina, 20, Salem, 15, Ibrahim, 14, and Yusef, 11.

On Sunday, 16 May 2021, at around 3:30 A.M., my husband Khaled was sitting in bed smoking a cigarette. I was next to him. Ayman and Hind were in their room, and the rest of the kids were with my mother-in-law, who lives next door. When we heard the muezzin call for dawn prayers, I said to my husband, “Get up and wash for dawn prayers.” He said, “I’ll just finish the cigarette and go.” 

Suddenly, I heard something fall on the house and the room filled with dust. Stones fell and scattered all over the room. I looked around and couldn’t see anything. Everything was full of dust. After five minutes, the dust settled and I saw my husband’s face. He was badly wounded in the head. I went out of the room and screamed. My son Ayman came out of his room at the same time and when he saw his father, I heard him say, “Oh my God!”

I looked down at the prayer robe I was wearing and saw it had blood and bits of my husband’s flesh on it. I was shocked and started screaming hysterically. Ayman helped me downstairs and took me to his grandmother’s house. We left my husband as he was.

About half an hour later, an ambulance arrived. It came late because there was massive artillery shelling and shells had landed in our area. When the ambulance arrived, there was another shelling, and the driver reversed and stopped by one of the houses to avoid getting hit. The Israeli military also fired flare bombs over the area.