As those fleeing al-Shifa get to south Gaza, they recount Israeli torture
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Mohammad Sukkar arrived in Deir el-Balah battered, wounded and exhausted after his ordeal with Israeli forces [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]
Two people, one who was in the besieged hospital and one who lived nearby, tell of their ordeal to escape.
Deir el-Balah, Gaza – Mohammad Sukkar is safe now – or safer – but even as the team at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah work to help him, his eyes fill with tears as he recounts his experience in al-Shifa Hospital.
The 27-year-old man fled south, wounded and stripped of his clothes, after days of siege and then detention by the Israeli army in the Shifa complex, along with dozens of other people.
“I had been displaced from al-Shujayea east of Gaza, which was destroyed and I was volunteering at the hospital after being displaced,” Sukkar told Al Jazeera, lying on a makeshift pallet fashioned out of some rough grey blankets on the floor.
“Late on a Monday … there was intense gunfire as Israeli tanks advanced towards the hospital,” he said.
“We didn’t know what was going on. The Israeli army ordered us via loudspeakers to stay inside the complex buildings and not move at all.”
Sukkar and dozens of other displaced people – many of them families with children – were trapped, along with sick people, for four agonising days in a Shifa building.
“We had no water or food. We were starving, and so afraid of the artillery shelling. All we could hear was the army booming through loudspeakers, shooting people and burning buildings around us,” he said.
“We didn’t even think of going outside.”
Mohamed Sukkar on a stretcher on the floor as a doctor bends over him Mohammad Sukkar, wearing clothing given to him by the ambulance crew, on the hospital floor [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]
‘Waving white flags’
As the siege continued and thirst took hold, some of the trapped people decided to venture out, waving white flags.
“We gathered – men, women, children, and the elderly – waving white flags and advancing cautiously,” Sukkar recalled.
“The army opened fire, forcing us to beg for safe passage, telling them we wanted to get out as we were starving and there was no water.
“The soldiers insisted we return to the building but then, minutes later, they called out that all the men should stay and line up and the women should gather and head south.”
The soldiers made the men strip and hold their hands above their heads as they handcuffed and blindfolded them.
“For four days, we were shackled in the cold in the hospital courtyard without food or water,” he said, pausing as a medic came by and administered some medication to him.
![Mohammad Sukkar arrived in Deir el-Balah battered, wounded and exhausted after his ordeal with Israeli forces [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]](https://img.wattpad.com/bb589dd1d22a65c21a5e84e340990e05fd3ad79e/68747470733a2f2f73332e616d617a6f6e6177732e636f6d2f776174747061642d6d656469612d736572766963652f53746f7279496d6167652f6573724f5a4e48632d74624e4f413d3d2d352e313763323333366430373433633963363331343037383637333438322e6a7067?s=fit&w=720&h=720)
