Palestinian paramedic engulfed by grief after realizing mother among dead following Israeli airstrike
Abdulaziz Al-Burdini is comforted by his colleagues after realizing his mother was killed in an Israeli airstrike in central Gaza on October 30
In the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike that killed three Palestinians, a paramedic was engulfed by grief after finding his mother among the dead.
Abdulaziz Al-Burdini, a Palestinian Red Crescent paramedic, was sent to Al-Maghazi in central Gaza on Wednesday to pick up wounded bodies following an Israeli airstrike that struck a car, according to Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Hospital.
Among the bodies was a woman he did not recognize. He took her to the hospital in an ambulance, but it was not until after the doctors confirmed her death that he looked at her face more closely and realized she was his mother.
CNN footage, taken with the paramedic’s permission, captured the moments soon after the realization.
“Mother… I didn’t know it was you, I swear I didn’t recognize you. I swear I didn’t!” he cries in anguish as he pushes the hospital stretcher carrying her body.
His colleagues approach to comfort him, but he pushes them away.
“I want to see my mother. Leave me, I want to stay with her,” he says, cradling her body.
He then stands weeping on top of her in his bloodied uniform screaming “Oh God, Oh God.”
“What do I tell my siblings now? Why do you all leave me? Why? I can’t hold this anymore. My brothers, my father, and now you? It’s too much for me!” Al-Burdini says, alluding to the death of his other family members during the war.
Later, his tears exhausted, he sat in the morgue beside Samira’s body with his head in his hands, comforted by his Red Crescent colleagues. They held a funeral prayer over her body in the car park, and then Bardini helped carry the body into an ambulance for burial.
Israel hits besieged Kamal Adwan Hospital’s medicine stash
The Ministry of Health in Gaza has condemned ongoing attacks by Israeli forces on the besieged Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern part of the enclave.
A short while ago, Israeli forces “caused great damage” when they hit the third floor of the largest hospital in the north, which contains medicine and medical supplies, the ministry said in a short statement on Telegram.
“The ministry appeals to all international and UN bodies and organisations to protect hospitals and medical staff from the brutality of the occupation and its crimes against health institutions and staff in the Gaza Strip,” it said.
Israeli forces have previously raided the hospital, arresting personnel and patients while cutting supplies
WHO medicine received five days ago destroyed in Kamal Adwan Hospital attack
We have more lines describing the deteriorating conditions inside Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahiya town after the latest Israeli military attacks, as reported by the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip:
- Multiple Kamal Adwan personnel are injured as a result of the continuous bombing of the hospital.
- Israeli forces bombed the desalination plant for the kidney dialysis department, the engineering and maintenance department, and water tanks inside the hospital.
- As a result of Israeli bombing of the third floor of Kamal Adwan, the medicine warehouse burned down and medical supplies that were received five days ago from the World Health Organization were destroyed.
MSF surgeon detained by Israel in north Gaza hospital raid
Medical charity Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, says one of its doctors working in a north Gaza hospital has been detained by Israeli forces.
Mohammed Obeid, an MSF orthopaedic surgeon working at Kamal Adwan Hospital in north Gaza, was detained during an Israeli military raid on the site on October 26, MSF said.
“We are extremely alarmed by the detention of our colleague,” it said. “We call for the safety and the protection of our colleague, and for all medical staff in Gaza who work under impossible conditions and are facing horrific violence as they try to provide care.”
