For about three months, Adnan El-Bursh reported on the war in Gaza while living in a tent, eating one meal a day, and struggling to keep his wife and five children safe. The BBC Arabic reporter shares the harrowing moments he faced covering a war that pushed him to his limits.
Warning: This report contains descriptions and images some readers may find distressing
One of the worst moments of the past six months was the night we all slept on the street. I looked at the faces of my wife and children, huddled in the bitter cold in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, and felt helpless.
My 19-year-old twins, Zakia and Batoul, lay on the pavement alongside my daughter, Yumna, who is 14, my son Mohamed, who is eight and my youngest girl, Razan, aged five, with their mother, Zaynab.
As we tried to rest outside the Palestinian Red Crescent Society’s headquarters, the sounds of shelling echoed through the night and drones buzzed overhead.
We had managed to find an apartment to rent, but the landlord had called earlier that day, saying the Israeli military had warned him the building would be bombed. I was working at the time, but my family grabbed their bags and fled.
We met up at the Red Crescent headquarters, which was already overflowing with displaced people.
My brother and I sat on cardboard boxes all night, discussing what we should do.
We had fled our homes in the town of Jabalia a few days earlier, on 13 October, leaving most of our possessions behind, after the Israeli military told everyone in northern Gaza to move south for safety.
And now we had just escaped being bombed in the area we had been told to move to. It was hard to think straight. I felt angry, humiliated and terrible that I could not provide any protection for my family.
Leave a comment