LEILA FADEL, HOST:
A grim marker this week. The number of Palestinians killed in Gaza has now surpassed 40,000, the majority women and children. That's according to health officials in Gaza. The more than 10-month Israeli military offensive was triggered when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, killing some 1,200 people, according to the Israeli government. NPR's Hadeel Al-Shalchi and NPR producer Anas Baba bring us this story of four lives taken in an Israeli strike, including newborn twins.
HADEEL AL-SHALCHI, BYLINE: Mohammad Abu Al-Qumsan remembers the exact date he first spoke to his wife, Jumana.
MOHAMMAD ABU AL-QUMSAN: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: October 11, 2022. He says it was love at first sight.
ABU AL-QUMSAN: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: "The first thing I ever said to her was marry me," Abu Al-Qumsan says. After their wedding in July last year, he was set to take his new wife back to Abu Dhabi where he worked as an accountant. He'd rented a new apartment for them, which he partially furnished.
ABU AL-QUMSAN: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: "The kids' bedroom was the only thing left," he says. "I wanted us to furnish it together." They were meant to leave Gaza on October 12 but got stuck when the war broke out a few days earlier, forcing them to start a journey of displacement from Gaza City in the north to Rafah in the south, and eventually Deir al-Balah in the center of Gaza. Jumana got pregnant and gave birth to twins last Saturday, a boy, Asser, and a girl, Ayssal. But instead of fulfilling his dream of one day decorating their bedrooms together...
(CROSSTALK)
AL-SHALCHI: Just four days after Jumana gives birth, Abu Al-Qumsan shrieks in a hospital where his new family is wrapped in white cloth ready for burial. He drops to his knees, hysterical, men propping him up, trying to comfort him. While he was out to pick up the birth certificates, the love of his life, his newborns and mother-in-law were killed in an Israeli strike in the home they were sheltering in, according to health officials. The Israeli military told NPR that it was unfamiliar with the incident, and that it tries to avoid civilian casualties as they fight Hamas in Gaza.
ABU AL-QUMSAN: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: "Where were the Hamas fighters that had to be killed in the apartment my wife lived in?" Abu Al-Qumsan asks. Today, he sits on the floor of a makeshift tent made of tarp belonging to his sister. He sifts through a bag filled with baby clothes and lifts two onesies, one yellow, one blue, with white elephants sewn on them.
ABU AL-QUMSAN: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: "Behind each piece of clothing is a story," he says. Abu Al-Qumsan's wife and their twins are only three of the 40,005 Palestinians who health officials say have been killed in the war in Gaza since October. Health officials say more than 16,000 are children. That number doesn't include missing Palestinians or those stuck under the rubble of buildings destroyed by Israeli strikes. The new death toll comes in the same week of a new round of cease-fire talks in Doha, where international mediators hope Hamas and Israel will finally strike a deal to eventually end the war. Abu Al-Qumsan is indifferent.
ABU AL-QUMSAN: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: "So they announce a cease-fire today. What good does that do me now?" he says. What Abu Al-Qumsan says he does want is justice. He's looking for a way to bring legal action against the Israeli military.
ABU AL-QUMSAN: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: "I promise my wife and my children that I will never let this go," he says.
With Anas Baba in Khan Younis, Gaza, I'm Hadeel Al-Shalchi, NPR News, Tel Aviv.
(SOUNDBITE OF BRAMBLES "TO SPEAK OF SOLITUDE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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