A 37-year-old father of four from Khan Yunis, Muhammad witnessed the military shell masses waiting for UN flour trucks in Khan Yunis and kill dozens on 17 June 2025:
Up until the start of the war in October 2023, I lived with my wife and four children – Rima, 10; Dima, 8; Juri, 6; and Kinan, 4 – in our home in Khan Yunis. Three days after the war started we fled to my wife’s parents home in a-Tahliyah, east of Khan Yunis.
A week after we left, I went back to check on the house and slept there alone. That same night, our neighbors’ home was bombed and our home was damaged and partially destroyed. I was lightly injured in my legs from shrapnel, and in my back from rocks that fell. I was taken to a-Nasser Hospital in western Khan Yunis.
On 5 December 2023, after the Israeli military invaded Khan Yunis, we were displaced to Rafah. We stayed there for several months, in a small storage unit that wasn’t fit to live in. In mid-April 2024, after the military left Khan Yunis, we returned. Our home was completely destroyed and we couldn’t live in it, so I set up a tent next to the ruins. We lived there for a couple of months in very hard conditions – it was two months of suffering and pain.
At the beginning of July, the Israeli military ordered us to leave again. We went to the al-Mawasi area of Khan Yunis, stayed there for 10 days, and then went back to our home in the city and set up the tent next to it again. After about a month, the military invaded Khan Yunis again, but this time we didn’t escape in time. There were massive artillery shelling, shooting and explosions everywhere, and dozens of people were killed. After that attack, we went back to al-Mawasi in Khan Yunis, where we are still staying.
In January 2025, the ceasefire began and it gave us some hope, especially because aid like flour and frozen foods was let in. But at the beginning of March, they closed all the crossings. Two weeks later, the war started up again, even harder and more violent than before.
The siege on the Strip has choked us. Goods have disappeared from the markets and all the prices have gone through the roof. Very quickly I couldn’t afford almost any food, including flour. Because of the flour shortage, all we had to give to our children during that time was one pita a day per child. So, several times a day, my wife and I would take one pita and divide it between the four kids.
To try to get more flour, I started going to the aid distribution sites, or to the areas the flour trucks pass through when they enter the Strip through the Kerem Abu Salam [Kerem Shalom] crossing. The entry of the trucks is coordinated between the occupation army and international organizations, but there’s no organized distribution and we can’t know where the aid will actually end up. So, to try and get a sack of flour, we go to the places they drive by. Thousands of people gather there – young men, women, children. It’s a very painful sight. People wait for the trucks for hours and hours. Some sleep on the street, hoping to get a sack of flour. People pounce on the trucks the minute they enter the Strip.
I walk about 6-7 kilometers from our tent in the al-Mawasi area of Khan Yunis to the a-Tahliyah area, which is east of the city of Khan Yunis. Most places the trucks reach are designated by the Israeli military as red zones where the residents were forced to leave, so being there means your life is in danger. There are no set timetables for the arrival of the trucks. We find out through social media where trucks laden with flour are headed, and run there to wait for them.
Today (17 June 2025) I woke up at 5:00 A.M. I heard from people that the aid trucks were going to pass through the a-Tahliyah area. I got dressed and ran out of the house to get there early. When I arrived, there were already huge crowds, but no trucks with flour. Just masses of people waiting for them.
Suddenly, Israeli tanks started to fire at the people. The first shell was fired at around 8:00 A.M. There were injuries and casualties. People went over to the wounded to try and help them, and then the army fired again. And again. The sight of the mutilated bodies was horrifying. Some were without hands and legs, others decapitated, some were shredded to bits. People were screaming for help but there was no one who could help, because whoever was able to get out of there ran away immediately. Ambulances were not allowed to reach the area. When the shelling stopped, the killed and wounded were evacuated on donkey carts and tuk-tuks (rickshaws).
Dozens of people were killed today, including women. The place was full of blood and the air was full of screams from wounded people. It was a very difficult sight.
* Testimony given to B’Tselem field researcher Olfat al-Kurd on 17 June 2025