Gazan Woman Narrates Ordeal as Israeli Army Dog Attacks Her

Despite the weeks since she was attacked and bitten by an Israeli occupation dog, Umm Hassan continues to suffer from the physical and psychological pain of such a harrowing experience.

Umm Hassan has three children and lives in Khan Yunis, and her house was subjected to artillery shelling by the Israeli occupation army, which made it impossible to live in.

She  recalls the details of her tragedy on 24 October, when the Israeli army launched a surprise attack on her residential area in the Al-Manara neighborhood of Khan Yunis.

She said: “Unbelievably and indescribably, we began to hear the sounds of tank tracks and quadcopters surround our homes which were packed with families at the time according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights.

On that day, the occupation army began shelling these houses with artillery shells and warplanes, including the Al-Farra family’s house next to Umm Hassan’s home, where 13 people were killed, most of them children.

She continued: The occupation bombed the second floor of our house, we were about 20 laying on the ground floor with my children, husband, my brothers and my husband’s family.

We were besieged in the house, and due to the intensity of the continuous artillery shelling, we hid in the bathroom, and remained there till late evening.

But suddenly, the occupation forces brought in a dog equipped with a camera to search the house. It stopped in front of us and headed towards us, and then bit my 17-year-old sister who is married and pregnant.

Soon after that the dog came at me and bit me in the thigh causing deep wounds and severe bleeding. I was already nine months pregnant.

Umm Hassan’s husband tried to shoo the dog away but the animal wouldn’t let go, amid the screams of her terrified young children.

 “Then the dog dragged me 15 meters from the bathroom whilst holding my feet tightly. I felt the flesh come out. My feet started to bleed profusely as the whole family in the house looked on in terror. The dog held my feet tightly for about 10 minutes and no one was able to pull its jaw off…

Soon we heard the sound of many soldiers ascending the stairs of the house whilst three of them came to pull the dog’s jaw out. But they could not do that until the fourth soldier, who was in charge, came and pulled the jaw out forcefully.”

Horrific

Her foot was mutliated. The wound was so deep, going all up to her thigh with an eight-centimeter-gash abd 12 centimeters long, the doctors later told her.

 “The sight was horrific. I felt as if my feet were going to be cut off due to the severity of the wound. It seemed like the dog was chewing on flesh from my thigh. The floor was drenshed in blood. I was screaming in pain, and I felt I might lose my unborn child.

The soldiers occupied the house and took full control, climbing the roof in large numbers whilst shooting randomly in all directions with the artillery shelling continuing non-stop from the moment they stormed in until they left, seven hours later.

Umm Hassan said there was a total siege of the area: “We did not know the fate of the neighboring families, whether they made it alive or killed.

She said the Israeli soldiers isolated the men in a room and put the women and children who were in great distress, shouting and screaming, in another.

I was in pain and bleeding, and I slowly began to lose consciousness. The officer came again and told me if I spoke about what happened to anyone that the soldiers were the ones who released the dog on me, they would come and torture me, and kill my children and my entire family, threatening to get to me wherever I maybe, I thought they were going to kill me.

However at 2:30 am, the occupation forces withdrew from the house. They arrested Umm Hassan’s husband with a young man from the Al-Farra family, and left under artillery shelling that continued incessantly.

The children began to cry and scream again for their father. Their mother did not know anything about her husband until 7 am in the morning when they began to hear the sounds of ambulances. They learned then the army withdrew from the neighborhood, so family went to the Nasser Hospital.

While I was leaving, I was surprised at the large number of martyrs, including children, women and elderly people on the ground, with neighbors pulling out their martyrs, with pproximately 35 dead from the Abu Abdeen, Awida and Al-Farra families.

In hospital, the doctors were shocked by the severity of her wound, says Umm Hassan, and worried about her pregnancy.

After examining me, they told me I had high blood pressure and I was in the stage of preeclampsia due to the severe bleeding and the dog bite. The doctors told me the wound was very deep and needed urgent surgery to save my foot. Initially they were unable to treat the wound properly due to the lack of medicines, disinfectants, gauze and sterilizers and transferred me to the Mubarak Hospital on 28 October, 2024; their the doctors decided to perform an urgent caesarean section.

I entered the operating room at 9 am, and I waited for a doctor until 6:30 pm, the place was in a pitiful state and no suitable bed for delivery and after the caesarean section, I  unfortunately lost the baby.

Three hours later, the doctors told her that she needed an urgent operation for the wound in her foot. Due to the lack of hospital resources, the operation was performed in the same operating room where she gave birth in.

An hour after the operation, Umm Hassan was transferred to intensive care at the Nasser Hospital, where she stayed there for a week. On 4 November, 2024, the occupation released her husband after 10 days, and told them he was taken to the border area with Egypt in Rafah where he was interrogated.

I still suffer from very difficult psychological conditions, and I become hysterical because of the threats I received from the officer and the physical pain I went through. I cannot forget the horror I experienced and my children were exposed to, especially my daughter Sham, who still suffers from extreme fear and involuntary urination due to the psychological trauma she was exposed to. I am still unable to walk or move normally, and I need to change the bandages twice a day so that the wound wouldn’t get infected.

Her husband’s arrest was not his first. On 13 November, 2023, Umm Hassan says the Israeli occupation army arrested him with workers in Qalqilya, and transferred him to Anatot prison, but he was released and returned to them safely after five days through the Kerem Shalom crossing.

Before this incident, Umm Hassan suffered from repeated displacement from her home in Khan Yunis to Rafah and back to Mawasi, where they experienced hunger, cold and the heat of tents before returning to their home to find themselves facing new sufferings and a life of hardship.

CrossFireArabia

CrossFireArabia

Dr. Marwan Asmar holds a PhD from Leeds University and is a freelance writer specializing on the Middle East. He has worked as a journalist since the early 1990s in Jordan and the Gulf countries, and been widely published, including at Albawaba, Gulf News, Al Ghad, World Press Review and others.

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UN Slams Israel’s ‘Unprecedented Displacement’ on The West Bank

The UN human rights office, OHCHR, on Friday condemned the intensifying Israeli military operation in the northern West Bank, warning that nearly 40,000 Palestinians have been displaced already amid an “alarming wave” of violence and destruction.

Since the start of the offensive on 21 January, Israeli forces have killed at least 44 Palestinians, including five children and two women, in Jenin, Tulkarem and Tubas governorates, and four refugee camps in those areas, according to OHCHR.

Many of those killed were unarmed and posed no imminent threat, said the UN rights office, calling the killings “part of an expanding pattern of Israel’s unlawful use of force in the West Bank where there are no active hostilities.”

‘Unprecedented’ displacement

OHCHR also highlighted an unprecedented scale of mass displacement not seen in decades in the occupied West Bank.

It cited reports from displaced residents of a pattern where they were led out of their homes by Israeli security forces and drones under the threat of violence.

They are then forced out of their towns with snipers positioned on rooftops around them and houses in their neighbourhoods used as posts by Israeli security forces,” the office said.

Testimonies collected by OHCHR describe Israeli forces threatening residents who were told they would never be allowed to return. One woman, who fled barefoot carrying her two young children, said she was denied permission to retrieve heart medication for her baby.

In Jenin refugee camp, bulldozed roads were photographed with new street signs reportedly now written in Hebrew.

“In this regard, we reiterate that any forcible transfer in or deportation of people from occupied territory is strictly prohibited and amounts to a crime under international law,” OHCHR stated.

Legal obligations

The office stressed that displaced Palestinians must be allowed to return to their homes and called for immediate, transparent investigations into the killings.

“Military commanders and other superiors may be held responsible for the crimes committed by their subordinates if they fail to take all necessary and reasonable measures to prevent or punish unlawful killings,” it stated.

OHCHR also reiterated Israel’s obligations under international law, including ending its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible and evacuating all West Bank settlements immediately.

“In the meantime, as the occupying power, Israel must ensure the protection of Palestinians, the provision of basic services and needs, and the respect of Palestinians’ full range of human rights,” the office said.

WFP aid trucks cross into Gaza via the Zikim and Kerem Shalom border crossings.

© WFP

WFP aid trucks cross into Gaza via the Zikim and Kerem Shalom border crossings.

Humanitarian update

Meanwhile in Gaza, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) reported on Friday it had reached more than 860,000 men, women and children with food parcels, hot meals, bread and cash assistance since the start of the fragile ceasefire.

UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told journalists at a regular news briefing in New York that over 19,000 metric tonnes of WFP food have entered Gaza.

The agency has also distributed nutrition packs to some 85,000 people, including children under five, and pregnant and breastfeeding women, and provided more than 90,000 people with cash assistance in the past two weeks.

Efforts are also underway to establish more food distribution points, especially in North Gaza, to reduce travel distances, transport costs and protection risks for families,” Mr. Dujarric said.

Fuel deliveries, schools reopening

In addition, the World Health Organization (WHO) distributed 100,000 litres of fuel to hospitals in Gaza City on Friday, having delivered about 5,000 litres of fuel to Al Awda Hospital, in North Gaza governorate the day before.

In southern Gaza, education partners in Rafah are preparing for the reopening of at least a dozen schools as displaced families return to their home areas, Mr. Dujarric said.

“As you know, schools across the Strip had been used as shelters for Palestinians displaced during 15 months of hostilities. In Khan Younis and Deir al Balah, partners are providing cleaning materials to restart learning activities,” he added.

UN News

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After 22 Years in Israeli Jail he Walks Free; A Story of Neglect, Torture

Muhammad Barrash spent 22 years in an Israeli prison, enduring blindness, pain, and medical neglect. On Saturday, he finally walked free.

Barrash’s story is one of unimaginable suffering. In 2002, an Israeli “Energa” shell struck him in the heart of Ramallah in the West Bank. The explosion took his left leg, damaged his right, and left him partially blind. In June 2003, Israeli forces captured him. He was sentenced to three life terms and an additional 40 years.

Prison only deepened his suffering. Within a year of his detention, Barrash lost his eyesight completely. His right eye, already injured, deteriorated due to untreated medical conditions. But he kept this secret from his mother.

“Don’t tell my mother I am blind,” he wrote in a letter from prison in 2012. “She sees me, but I cannot see her. I smile and pretend when she holds up pictures of my brothers and friends. She doesn’t know that darkness has taken over my body.”

For years, Israeli prison authorities denied him medical care. He waited endlessly for a corneal transplant. The procedure never came. His body bore the scars of war—shrapnel embedded in his flesh, his right leg deteriorating. In 2021, he discovered that Israeli prison authorities had been giving him expired cholesterol medication, worsening his condition.

Meanwhile, his mother waited. She fought to visit him. She dreamed of his freedom. And on Saturday, her prayers were answered. Barrash stepped out of prison, no longer behind bars but forever marked by the years of neglect and torment.

His release is part of the first phase of a prisoner exchange deal between the resistance and the occupation state. For many, his story symbolizes the brutal conditions faced by Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons.

Despite the blindness, the wounds, and the suffering, Barrash survived. He is free. But the scars remain.

Unprecedented Torture

The harrowing experiences of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli detention centers have long been a subject of international concern. Recent reports highlight a disturbing escalation in the severity of torture and mistreatment.

According to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS), detainees released as part of the recent prisoner exchange exhibited signs of “unprecedented” torture and starvation. Freed prisoners were observed wearing stained grey prison jumpsuits, bearing physical evidence of prolonged abuse. Testimonies revealed that many endured severe beatings leading to broken ribs, systematic medical neglect, and deliberate starvation. Some suffered from untreated skin conditions like scabies, exacerbated by the harsh prison environment.

Further reports from the Arab Workers Union indicate that Palestinian workers arrested following the October 2023 Israeli genocide in Gaza faced brutal treatment. Legal advisor Wehbe Badarneh disclosed that 34 workers died under mysterious circumstances or from alleged heart attacks while in detention. Testimonies from survivors detailed horrific abuse, including beatings, stripping, and various torture methods. These accounts suggest that some workers were tortured to death, prompting calls for international legal action against Israel.

Amnesty International has also documented a sharp increase in the use of administrative detention by Israeli authorities, leading to arbitrary arrests of Palestinians across the occupied West Bank. The organization reported that detainees suffered from inhuman and degrading treatment, with incidents of torture and deaths in custody going uninvestigated. This pattern of abuse underscores a systemic issue within the Israeli detention system according to the Quds News Network.

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