Gaza Nurse Captures Chaos and Grief After Israeli Strike: A Firsthand Account
On October 21st, a shocking video surfaced from Jabalia in Gaza, revealing the horrifying aftermath of an Israeli airstrike. For those watching from afar, it provides a rare and raw glimpse into the unimaginable suffering endured by Gaza’s civilians under constant attack.
For journalists, limited to reporting from outside Gaza due to Israeli restrictions, videos like these have become essential. They depict scenes of devastation: wounded civilians in hospitals, people pulling bodies from the rubble, and the displaced walking through landscapes of ruin. However, the footage from Jabalia on that Monday was especially haunting, capturing the chaos, grief, and hopelessness just moments after the attack.
The strike targeted Jabalia Boys Elementary School, which had been repurposed as a shelter for displaced civilians under the UN’s protection. In the aftermath, paramedic Nevine al Dawawi, using only her phone, captured the horror as she rushed between the injured and dead, trying to offer what little help she could.
“I Have Nothing to Stop the Bleeding”
Nevine’s frantic voice can be heard in the video as she tends to a severely injured woman. “I don’t have anything to stop the bleeding,” she cries, running through the blood-streaked hallways. Her phone captures the confusion around her – bodies strewn on the floor, cries for help echoing. A child pleads for assistance for his dying sister. A grieving mother sits next to her two lifeless children, her voice heavy with sorrow as she confirms their deaths.
This mother, Lina Ibrahim Abu Namos, lost two of her seven children in the attack—her eldest daughter and only son. She recounted the harrowing scene from her hospital bed in Jabalia, where she was being treated for shrapnel wounds. Her husband had already been injured in an earlier airstrike and wasn’t with them when the attack occurred. “I saw my daughter dying in front of me,” Lina said. “I couldn’t save her.”
“We Were Living in Fear”
Nevine, the paramedic, explained how the residents of the school had been living in fear for over two weeks, surrounded by the constant buzz of Israeli drones. Three days before the airstrike, one of these drones had issued a warning: they had one hour to evacuate. Ten minutes later, bombs rained down, killing over ten people and injuring more than thirty.
The footage shows the true horror of that morning: a man leaning over a pile of bags, dead from a severe neck wound; children and adults lying in pools of blood; and the remains of those who didn’t survive. “It was a massacre,” Nevine recalled, describing how some of the victims were shredded by the blasts.
Humanitarian Crisis Worsens
As the situation in Gaza grows more dire, international officials have issued grave warnings. Tor Wennesland, the senior UN diplomat in Jerusalem, condemned the ongoing violence, calling for the protection of civilians. “Nowhere is safe in Gaza,” he said. “This war must end.”
Israel, for its part, continues to assert that it is acting in self-defense, claiming that civilian casualties occur because militant groups use them as human shields. Nevine, however, rejected this narrative, stating that the civilians were not being used as shields but were simply trying to survive.
For those in Israel, her testimony might be seen as proof of militant presence in the area, but international law questions whether the airstrike was justified. Civilian lives are supposed to be protected, and the scale of the casualties raises serious legal concerns.
A Mother’s Grief
Lina, still reeling from the loss of her children, expressed the profound grief felt by so many in Gaza. “What crime have our children committed?” she asked, her voice filled with pain. “They’ve destroyed our children, our homes, our lives.”
Her words echo the experiences of countless others in Gaza, where civilians continue to endure unimaginable suffering with no safe place to turn. “I’m so scared,” she said. “There’s no home, nowhere safe, nothing. I’m just one of many with nowhere to go.”
The video captured by Nevine, and the stories of those like Lina, remind the world of the heavy toll that war takes on innocent lives. As the conflict rages on, their pleas for help grow louder, even as the world struggles to respond.
