[News] As those fleeing al-Shifa get to south Gaza, they recount Israeli torture

[Anti-Imperialist News]

 As those fleeing al-Shifa get to south Gaza, they recount Israeli torture

*Two people, one who was in the besieged hospital and one who lived nearby,
tell of their ordeal to escape.*
[image: Mohamed Sukkar, eyes closed, lying on the floor of the hospital as
someone administers a solution into his mouth using a syringe]
Mohammad Sukkar arrived in Deir el-Balah battered, wounded and exhausted
after his ordeal with Israeli forces [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]
By Maram Humaid
<https://www.aljazeera.com/author/maram_humaid_180330170649742>
Published On 1 Apr 2024 -
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/1/as-those-fleeing-al-shifa-get-to-south-gaza-they-recount-israeli-torture
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*Deir el-Balah, Gaza* – Mohammad Sukkar is safe now – or safer – but even
as the team at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah work to help him,
his eyes fill with tears as he recounts his experience in al-Shifa Hospital.

The 27-year-old man fled south, wounded and stripped of his clothes, after
days of siege and then detention by the Israeli army in the Shifa complex,
along with dozens of other people.

“I had been displaced from al-Shujayea east of Gaza, which was destroyed
and I was volunteering at the hospital after being displaced,” Sukkar told
Al Jazeera, lying on a makeshift pallet fashioned out of some rough grey
blankets on the floor.

“Late on a Monday … there was intense gunfire as Israeli tanks advanced
towards the hospital,” he said.

“We didn’t know what was going on. The Israeli army ordered us via
loudspeakers to stay inside the complex buildings and not move at all.”

Sukkar and dozens of other displaced people – many of them families with
children – were trapped, along with sick people, for four agonising days in
a Shifa building.

“We had no water or food. We were starving, and so afraid of the artillery
shelling. All we could hear was the army booming through loudspeakers,
shooting people and burning buildings around us,” he said.

“We didn’t even think of going outside.”
[image: Mohamed Sukkar on a stretcher on the floor as a doctor bends over
him]Mohammad Sukkar, wearing clothing given to him by the ambulance crew,
on the hospital floor [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera] ‘Waving white flags’

As the siege continued and thirst took hold, some of the trapped people
decided to venture out, waving white flags.

“We gathered – men, women, children, and the elderly – waving white flags
and advancing cautiously,” Sukkar recalled.

“The army opened fire, forcing us to beg for safe passage, telling them we
wanted to get out as we were starving and there was no water.

“The soldiers insisted we return to the building but then, minutes later,
they called out that all the men should stay and line up and the women
should gather and head south.”

The soldiers made the men strip and hold their hands above their heads as
they handcuffed and blindfolded them.

“For four days, we were shackled in the cold in the hospital courtyard
without food or water,” he said, pausing as a medic came by and
administered some medication to him.

“If we asked for anything, the soldiers shouted at us, kicked us with their
boots, spat at us, and insulted us with the most horrific words,” Sukkar
continued.

Eventually, the soldiers released some of the detainees, ordering them to
go south – without their clothes or belongings.

“We started walking towards al-Rashid Street. I was with five young
detainees and we were all shivering from cold and fear. The roads were full
of tanks and soldiers, bodies on the ground – but we kept walking, our
hands raised above our heads.”

“When we reached an Israeli checkpoint, the soldiers stopped us, let the
others pass but arrested me,” Sukkar said.

“I tried to ask where they were taking me, but they beat me. There were
about 10 soldiers, all of whom were kicking me and using metal bars to hit
me all over.”

After attacking him, the soldiers told Sukkar to go, but he had been beaten
so hard he was not able to walk. So they loaded him into a military jeep
and threw him out near the checkpoint.

“My hands and feet were very painful and bleeding. I was crawling until a
passer-by saw me, gave me first aid, and took me to the hospital.”
‘Extreme terror’

Arriving at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in an ambulance was Mohammad
Marshoud, a thin, subdued 25-year-old man with a clump of soiled medical
cotton taped to one side of his head.

He was injured when Israeli forces shelled his family’s home in the
vicinity of the al-Shifa Hospital, where he was staying with 15 family
members, including his elderly parents, his sisters, their children and
some cousins.
[image: Mohamed Marshud, in a blue plastic gown to protect him from the
cold, with a soiled dressing on the side of his head]Mohammad Marshoud, a
thin, subdued young man, arrived at the hospital with a soiled bandage on
his head [Abdulhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]

After an ordeal that lasted days, Marshoud was able to walk to the south
with his cousin, both of them badly injured and stripped of all their
clothing. He does not know the fate of any of the rest of his family.

It was only when emergency response teams found them that they were able to
give them blue plastic gowns to protect them from the cold a bit.

“We were sleeping when we were surprised by the Israeli tanks,” Marshoud
said of the day the siege began around al-Shifa.

“We got ready to flee but when I opened the door, there were tanks on our
doorstep.

“Everyone was in extreme terror. We cowered in a small corridor, unable to
move with all the shooting. The children were crying and the women
screaming in fear. We were sure we’d all die.”

Artillery shells exploded in the house, wounding Marshoud, his cousin, and
his elderly father, all of whom were hit by shrapnel in the head and back.
[image: Mohamed Marshoud walking through hospital corridors with another
man]Marshoud was in rough shape, but Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital was so
overloaded that there was no one who could wheel him around [Abdulhakim Abu
Riash/Al Jazeera]

“We weren’t able to call an ambulance. We crawled around to grab bits of
clothing or medical gauze from here and there in the house so we could stop
our wounds bleeding,” said Marshoud, who works as a nurse.

Israeli soldiers stormed the house and arrested all the men, including
Marshoud’s father, who is 70.

“I had prepared for this moment, wrote a sign in English for the children
to hold; it said: We are civilians and children only. Please help us,”
Marshoud said.

“But they didn’t care, they just arrested the men and ordered us to strip.”

The soldiers took Marshoud, his father, and his cousin to a nearby building
where they had detained other men.

“Our wounds were still bleeding. The place was full of broken stones and
they made us sleep on them,” he said.

“They beat us severely, pulled out my chest hair and tortured me. They
wouldn’t let us go to the toilet … some of the people there wet themselves.”

After five days of detention, Marshoud and his cousin were released and
ordered to go south.

“There were so many tanks. Quadcopters were hovering above us, bodies all
over the roads.”

“All I can think about is my family … I can’t contact them, I don’t know
where they are.”
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