Palestinian sisters mourn loss of mother after Gaza airstrike

By Mohammed Salem

GAZA (Reuters) – After another airstrike pulverized Gaza, the two al-Breim sisters realized their mother Amira was missing and rushed to the scene, shouting her name and frantically searching the rubble for anything sign of her.

“It's like we're in a nightmare. It's like we're in a dream. A dream,” Samar al-Breim sobbed amid piles of collapsed concrete and twisted cables.

“I pray to God that I wake up and find out that it was just a dream and it’s not true,” she added. “What did they do to deserve this?”

Children were also sleeping at the site of the airstrike in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, she said. “The children were sleeping, they are innocent, they were torn to pieces.”

Her sister Sahar said their uncles and their families had perished, adding that she too should have spent the night at her mother's house but was unable to come due to lack of transportation.

“My mother is stuck here,” she added, pointing to the piles of rubble. “There is no safe place in all of Gaza.”

Thousands of Palestinians are believed to be buried under rubble after relentless airstrikes from an Israeli offensive that has killed more than 36,000 people, according to Gaza health authorities, and ravaged the densely populated enclave.

The war began when the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and returning more than 250 people to Gaza, according to Israeli figures, creating a hostage crisis for the extreme government. right of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“We hope to God that there will be a ceasefire because we have lost a lot of things – we have lost all our loved ones. We have nothing left,” Sahar said, continuing to call the name from his mother.

Mediators failed to secure a permanent ceasefire despite months of negotiations. Netanyahu reiterated Monday that Israel's top priority in Gaza remains the destruction of Hamas as well as the recovery of hostages held by the group.

Samar al-Breim clutched a few random objects among the piles of rubble.

“They (the Israelis) want to annihilate us…” Samar added. “Despite the pain, the death, the destruction they have caused, we will be victorious, God willing… and we will be stronger than before.”

(Writing by Michael Georgy; editing by Gareth Jones)