GAZA, (PIC)
“I couldn’t comprehend… What’s happening? A dream or not? Is this real? There’s no one left for me. Every day I sit alone, remembering my family. I never forget them, not for a moment.” With these words, Mahmoud Sukkar, tears streaming down his face, mourns the loss of 17 family members who were killed in an instant, leaving him as “the lone survivor.”
In a fragile tent in Khan Yunis, offering no protection from the scorching summer heat or the biting winter cold, Sukkar recounts his story of anguish and sorrow—a story that mirrors thousands of others left in the wake of the Israeli war of genocide that has ravaged Gaza for over 440 days.
On October 23, Sukkar’s life was shattered when all his family members were killed. The Israeli military targeted a two-story building housing his family, extended relatives, and his grandfather. Reflecting on that day, Sukkar recalls: “I had left the house just half an hour before. Then the news came that all my family had been martyred.”
In shock, Sukkar continues, “I couldn’t believe it. A friend called and told me he needed to take me to the hospital because my family members were injured there.” But when he arrived, he was met with the devastating sight of his loved ones lying side by side, lifeless, “I found my mother, my father, my uncles, and my grandfather all together.”
Despite his overwhelming grief, Sukkar has preserved the death certificates of his entire family. Pointing to the documents with tearful eyes, he says, “This is my father, this is my mother, this is my older brother, my twin brother, my younger brother, my older sister, little Shahd, my cousins, and my grandfather. They were all in the same house.” He adds, “Now, I’m left alone in a tent in Al-Zawaida.”
Sukkar recounts how, two months later, he fled to the south with his uncle. They were besieged in Al-Nasr Hospital for four days, then displaced again, moving from Rafah to Khan Yunis, and finally to Al-Zawaida, where he now lives alone.
The story of “the lone survivor” is not unique to Sukkar. There are hundreds, even thousands, of similar tales of individuals who have survived alone after continuous Israeli atrocities, which, since October 7, have wiped out entire families. Many families in Gaza have been completely erased from the civil registry.
According to the Government Media Office in Gaza, over 9,941 massacres have been committed in Gaza, resulting in more than 56,289 deaths and disappearances. A recent update shared on Thursday revealed that since the genocide war began on October 7, 2023, the Israeli military has dropped approximately 88,000 tons of explosives on Gaza.
The statistics are staggering: 1,413 Palestinian families have been completely wiped out, with every family member killed. These families accounted for 5,455 individuals, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health. Additionally, 3,467 families have been decimated, leaving only one survivor, with 7,941 victims from these families.
This ongoing war has left unimaginable scars on Gaza, where countless survivors like Mahmoud Sukkar are forced to endure the pain of loss and the struggle to live in solitude amid the devastation.
