Palestine: “What I dream about is for all this to be over.”
An MSF patient shares his story after being injured at an aid distribution site in Zikim.
On Thursday, July 24, I tried to go to Zikim to get flour. I waited there all night, but I got nothing.
On Friday, I decided to try again. My father did not want me to go because last time I went, I saw many dead people from the shelling and shooting from tanks. But we have 10 people in my family, so I went without telling them.
As the trucks entered, at first, they drove very fast but then they slowed down for the big crowd. When the trucks turned, several 50-kilogram bags of flour fell off, injuring people. The Israeli forces forced the driver to keep going, despite there being people all around him. The driver tried to reverse the truck to leave the area, but it was so crowded that people were hit. There were seven other young men with me, they were all killed when the truck reversed. I was sitting down with my legs in front of me. One leg was itching, so I pulled it in. That’s the only reason the truck ran over just one of them.
A woman came to help me, she took a shawl to stop the bleeding, but she could not carry me. I saw a friend and they both helped carry me, reassuring me. At one point, I lost consciousness. We could not find transport. People thought I was dying and did not want to take me in the car. We finally found a tuktuk to take me to Hamad medical point. They put water on my face to keep me awake. At the medical point, they used wood from a pallet to wrap my leg and tied it with a shirt. There were no proper materials. I saw people with gunshot wounds and injuries from fighting. Some people died just from being crushed in the crowd.
I was injured at 5 p.m. but I didn’t arrive at Al Shifa until 11 p.m. The hospital was full of patients everywhere; I had to wait until 3 a.m. for surgery.
Now that I am injured, there aren’t many options left for our family. My older brother spends the day doing odd jobs, helping people carry things to earn some money. My father tries to rent out the car we have to make some money. Some days, we have bread, other days we don’t find anything. But none of us will go back to Zikim.
What I dream about is for all this to be over and to rebuild the house and my father’s business that was destroyed.
