The gallery of emblematic photos of the ordeal to which Palestinians in Gaza have been subjected for a year has been enriched with a new image: that of the death of Shaaban Al-Dalou, 19, burned alive in a fire started by an Israeli strike on a displaced persons camp, in Deir Al-Balah, on the night of Sunday October 13 to Monday October 14. Three other people, including his mother, Alaa Al-Dalou, 37, died with him and around forty were injured.
Videos of the last seconds of the young man’s life show him on the makeshift bed where he slept, stretching out his arms to protect himself from the flames, before disappearing into the blaze. This sequence, difficult to sustain, went viral. In the eyes of the Palestinians, it testifies to the cruelty of the bombings of the Jewish state, responsible for more than 42,000 deaths in twelve months, the majority of women and minors, according to a count by the Gaza authorities, validated by international organizations. .
The eldest of five children, originally from Gaza City, Shaaban Al-Dalou studied computer science before the war. He was known to be a good student and was said to have memorized the entire Koran. A few weeks after the start of the Jewish State’s offensive, launched on October 7, 2023 in retaliation for the massacre perpetrated by Hamas in southern Israel, he left to take refuge with his family in the south of the enclave. . Like them, hundreds of thousands of Gazans obeyed evacuation orders from the Israeli army, which then presented the southern part of the territory as a safe zone.
He wanted to go to Egypt
But in the Gaza Strip, there is no space protected from bombs. In a video, which has resurfaced on social networks since his death, Shaaban Al-Dalou claimed that he was on his fifth forced displacement. He also expressed the wish to leave Gaza and join Egypt. Images filmed in a tent, set up in the courtyard of Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir Al-Balah, in the center of the enclave, among dozens of other displaced people. This is where the tragedy took place, Monday, around 1:30 a.m.
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“There was an explosion and the camp caught fire”says photojournalist Attia Darwish, present on the scene that night, and that The World joined Gaza. The international press is banned from accessing Palestinian territory by the Israeli authorities. “ Shaaban was three meters away from us, burning. He was moving, he was alive, we tried to save him. But the hospital’s fire extinguishers weren’t working and we couldn’t get any closer, the heat was too strong. »
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