An 18-year-old from Rafah, Hamzah described losing his leg after being shot early in the war, at age 17, and undergoing months of repeated displacement, hunger, and thirst without access to proper care
Until the war, I lived with my parents and six siblings, Nur, 16, Ghazal, 14, Murad, 12, Judi, 10, Halimah, 4, and Misk, 2, in a rented house in the Tel a-Za'tar neighborhood in eastern Gaza City.
My father, Bahajat Abu Skheleh, 42, has had a disability in his leg since 2022 and has been unemployed for years. We lived on a welfare allowance of 700 shekels. He struggled every day to make do and care for our needs, without the most basic means for a decent life.
I’ve been working since I was a child, carrying the burden of my family’s needs on my shoulders, along with the hopes of a young man dreaming of a better future despite the difficult situation in the Gaza Strip. I dealt with many hardships every day.
Then this horrible war began, different from anything we’ve known. The Israeli military bombed us, defenseless civilians, with heavy missiles, destroying people’s homes on top of their heads and killing children, women, and elderly people.
From the moment the war started, we stopped receiving our welfare allowance and were left with no income at all. Our lives became harder and harder, and we were entirely dependent on food aid. We stayed at home during the first two months, but life had already become hell.
Then, in the early morning hours of 10 December 2023, the army began dropping leaflets from drones ordering all residents in the north of the Strip to evacuate their homes and head south. The flyers claimed that northern Gaza was a dangerous war zone, but we knew they were lying and the south was dangerous too. The military was bombing and killing people all over the Strip. Still, because of their threats, we started gathering whatever belongings we could carry, such as blankets, mattresses, clothes, and a bit of food, and got ready to leave.
We left that same day. The moment I walked a few steps along the street, a military drone fired at me and hit me in the right foot. I fell down and was evacuated in a mule cart, since there were no ambulances or other means of transport in the area.
My father took me to Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya to try to save me, but the doctors there told him no treatment was available. They said they couldn’t help me at all because the hospital was overwhelmed with wounded and displaced people from across northern Gaza. There wasn’t even a bed for me, and they couldn’t give me any treatment.
From there, my father took me to al-Kheir Hospital in Jabalya Refugee Camp. But there, the nurses only applied some iodine and bandaged my foot in gauze. Then I was transferred to al-Ma’madani (al-Ahli) Hospital in the a-Saha area of Gaza City.
That whole time, my family came with me from hospital to hospital because we had nowhere else to go. We stayed at al-Ma’madani for six days, hoping I would get treatment. Some surgeons there volunteered to help me and scheduled surgery to remove the bullet. But on the day of the operation, 17 December 2023, the Israeli military ordered a full evacuation of the hospital.
My surgery was canceled and the entire family had to move again, this time to a-Shifaa Hospital in western Gaza City. We arrived along with thousands of other displaced people who were fleeing the bombs, the killing and the army’s chasing of civilians from place to place.
We stayed there for 26 days. I moved between departments, trying to find someone who could treat me. My leg started to swell up and turn blue from infection, but no one could help. There were no operating rooms, no treatments, and no medication. In the end, the administration at a-Shifaa decided to transfer me to Al-Awda Hospital in Tel a-Za’tar after the military withdrew from the area and the hospital resumed operations.
So I dragged from hospital to hospital with my entire family, in terrible conditions. Everywhere we went, the bombings and displacement continued. We lived in fear and hunger, without a steady supply of food or water and with no safe shelter. There were no doctors available anywhere, no medicine, and no treatment options. The hospitals themselves were under attack and the military was besieging them, killing and arresting doctors, in order to bring the health system in Gaza to a state of collapse.
Meanwhile, my leg deteriorated badly and became necrotic. On 4 January 2024, the doctors at Al-Awda Hospital were forced to amputate it under difficult conditions to save my life.
Since then, I’ve been displaced with my family four more times. We moved from tent to tent, and every displacement came with pain and great suffering. I had to walk on crutches and had no access to medical care, medications, or even proper food to heal. We were all suffering constantly from hunger and fear imposed on us by the military.
On 20 January 2025, there was a brief pause in the war and things stabilized a bit. We could get food and water, and we had a little hope. But it didn’t last long.
On 18 March 2025, the Israeli military resumed its war on Gaza. The bombings intensified, and the army closed all the border crossings, blocking the entry of flour, vegetables, other food supplies, and medicine. We went back to the daily nightmare of fear, hunger, and thirst, only this time the hunger was worse than before.
The military ordered us to evacuate again and threatened us with bombing and shooting, but we had nowhere left to run. We found shelter in a small room in an eye hospital in the a-Nasser neighborhood in western Gaza City. My whole family is suffering extreme poverty and hunger here. Our bodies are showing signs of fatigue and malnutrition.
It’s very hard for me to move and I need help. Surviving this war is so much harder in my condition. I ask anyone in the world with a conscience to help me get treatment, medication, and clean food and water for myself and for my family.
I hope this horrific war, which hasn’t spared a single stone, tree, or person, will end. I hope we can get back to our lives and live in dignity and peace, and that I can leave the Strip to get a prosthetic leg, so I can walk again and have some kind of future.
* Testimony given to B’Tselem field researcher Muhammad Sabah on 7 June 2025