“People are burning in front of us!” This is the cry launched by the Palestinian Saleh Al-Jafarawi in a video after a strike by the Israeli army, Monday October 14, on the al-Aqsa hospital in the Gaza Strip. The images are extremely violent: in the middle of the flames, arms are raised. A man is dying, lying on his back, consumed by flames. A person with a fire extinguisher appeared to try to put out the fire which had gone out of control.
In total, five people died and several dozen others were injured. Josep Borrell, the head of diplomacy of the European Union, condemned this Israeli bombing on the social network “civilians killed and injured in appalling circumstances”. “Mass evacuation orders, violations of international humanitarian law and disregard for civilian casualties will not make Israelis safer”he writes.
The man burning in the images that went around the world has been identified by several media outlets, including Liberation and the Associated Press agency, reproduced here by ABC News. His name was Shaaban al-Dalu. This computer engineering student was soon to celebrate his twentieth birthday. Injured ten days before the tragedy, during a raid on a mosque, he was treated at al-Aqsa hospital. He died in the flames with his mother, Alaa, aged 38.
“My brother was burning before my eyes and I couldn’t do anything to help him. It’s an indescribable feeling”his younger brother Mohammed al-Dalu told Sky News. “I really don’t understand what we did to deserve this. We are displaced families. We move from one place to another, that’s all we can do. What Did we do anything wrong?” asks 14-year-old Tasnim, a cousin of Shaaban al-Dalu.
Shabaan al-Dalu launched a fundraiser on the GoFundMe platform in February to ask for help for him and his family. “My life has been turned upside down by incessant bombing and shelling. Once full of aspirations, I am now faced with the harsh reality of displacement and uncertainty”he wrote.
“In Gaza, dreams are extinguished. Each displacement leaves behind another fragment of our broken souls. (…) I once had big dreams, but the war ruined them”he continued, saying he suffered from depression.
“Time seems to have stopped in Gaza and we are stuck in a never-ending nightmare.”
Shaaban al-Dalu, Palestinian killed at al-Aqsa hospitalon the GoFundMe platform
Active on social networks, notably Instagram and Threads, Shaaban al-Dalu also posted videos on YouTube. In March, he filmed himself in a tent set up in the camp where he died and testified in English about his family’s situation. “We have been displaced five times so far. Today we are in al-Aqsa hospital, in the middle of Gazahe declares. I take care of my family, as I am the eldest. (…) We live in very difficult conditions, suffering from different things, such as being homeless, [d’avoir] little food, and extremely little medicine. The only thing between us and the freezing temperatures is this tent we built.”
The displaced persons camp located in the al-Aqsa hospital and hit overnight from Sunday to Monday by the Israeli army has been targeted at least six times since March. The Israeli army claims to have targeted a Hamas command center.
