CrossFireArabia
This is a story posted on linkedin recently by a young man in north Gaza who went with his friend to try and get a bag of flour for his family. His name is Abdalghani Owda and a founder of the Gaza Tech Club. This is his account of that morning, as he ducked through Israeli machine guns, deadly quadcopters and the man whose brain gushed out of his head! In the end he didn’t get the flour but says he hoped to comeback the next day!
“I want to quickly tell you about one of the worst and most difficult days of my life.
Today, Sunday, July 20.
At 8:00 AM, my phone rang. It was my friend.
He said, “Hurry, I’m waiting for you. We need to go to the Zikim area in northern Gaza because trucks carrying flour will be arriving in an hour.”
Without realizing it, I quickly washed my face, got dressed, and flew to my friend’s house, saying, “Oh God!”
Hurry, hurry, let’s walk so we can arrive early and be among the first to take our pick.
As we reached Al-Bahr Street, I found a human flood, perhaps 5 kilometers long.
Everyone was coming to take their share of flour, just like us.
I said, “Come on, I won’t leave. Everyone gets their share, and if we have something, we’ll take it.”
Of course, I didn’t eat breakfast because there was no breakfast.
There was a man selling falafel. A disc was the size of a pill and cost 1 shekel.
That means if I wanted to eat my fill, I’d need 100 shekels (US$29) to truly break my fast.
I bought for 10 shekels, and we said: “Anything is better than nothing.”
We kept walking northward, hoping my friend and I would have a better chance of getting a bag of flour.
The closer we got, the more dangerous the situation became.
The sound of bullets whistling past my head.
The closer I got, the more intense the bullets became.
There was a robotic arm hanging from a very high crane, and it was clearly operating automatically, firing randomly.
The tank was stationary, directly firing at anyone in its path.
My friend and I were barely 150 meters away from the tank.
We were already in a restricted area, but we had to take the risk to have a higher chance of getting flour.
For half an hour, we were hiding in a high earthen embankment to protect us from bullets and artillery shelling.
A short while later, the trucks arrived.
As soon as people attacked to get flour, the quadcopters came out and activated their machine guns. Blood began to flow.
More than five young men around me were killed instantly, in addition to the large number of injuries.
Honestly, I didn’t see any of them, and nothing mattered to me at all except getting home with a bag of flour.
I got very close to the truck, but it was very crowded and the situation was very dangerous.
A shot from the quadcopter hit right under my feet, and I felt it very strongly.
I told myself I had to step back a little.
I stepped back a little.
There was artillery fire, and the truck driver started to move because the truck was empty.
A man, about 40 years old, was standing in front of the truck.
The truck ran over him and drove over his head.
His brain came out of his skull and onto the ground, and the man died instantly.
Of course, I couldn’t get over this scene or this man.
I went to see him, maybe he was someone I knew personally.
It turned out to be someone I didn’t know, but my friend and I grabbed his body and moved it away from the middle of the road. I had a large empty bag with me just in case.
My friend and I picked up the man’s brain that came out of his skull and put it in the bag I had with us. We tried to find some young men to come with us and carry the body.
We put the body on a donkey-drawn cart, which contained a large number of dead bodies and injured people.
Then, within the 10 minutes we spent collecting the dead man, the trucks ran out of flour, leaving nothing left for us to take.
We returned with nothing.
We are waiting for tomorrow to go again, or for God to provide a way out for us and the people of Gaza.
A story I will never forget in my life.
This is a scene from life in Gaza. I am recounting it to you, and the image of the man who was run over by the truck is still etched in my mind and will never leave.
May God have mercy on this man, on all our martyrs, and on all the people of Gaza, and grant them a way out of this great distress and this intense suffering.
