A Palestinian genocide survivor, Hani Abualqaraya, has broken his silence to recount the horrors he witnessed as Gaza was turned into a vast killing ground by Israel. Hani, who has lost 25 family members, saw scenes so brutal that he fears many readers will struggle to believe his disturbing accounts. This is Hani’s testimony, told to 5Pillars’ correspondent Robert Carter.
Born in Jabalia, Sheikh Zayed, located in north Gaza, Hani Abualqaraya , 31, was raised by a large and loving family. Like all Palestinians, he was used to seeing war first hand and living a life of serve restrictions as Israel imposed a harsh siege on Gaza in 2007.
However, following October 7, 2023, and the start of Israel’s brutal war on Gaza, Hani was forced to flee his home before he was eventually rescued by his British-Pakistani wife Afshan Jabeen and wound up moving to Manchester in February 2024, five months after the genocide began.
During his time in Gaza he witnessed unimaginable death, destruction and the loss of several members of his family. To date, 25 family members have been slain in Gaza, with the remaining survivors stranded in tents struggling to survive amid harsh winter weather and continued Israeli aggression in spite of the announcement of a truce in October 2025.
I first met and reported on Hani’s story in 2024, as his wife Afshan fought tooth and nail for his life. Speaking to 5Pillars again, Hani details the worst of what he witnessed and the traumatising impact it has had on him and his family as he fights to get vitally needed medical help for his terminally ill father.
A warning to you the reader, what I detail next is shocking and deeply upsetting.
Tales of terror
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When Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza first began it very quickly became clear that this wasn’t an ordinary war but an indiscriminate assault on all of Gaza with civilian infrastructure being targeted en masse.
Unlike past clashes between Hamas and the IDF, this was very different. More merciless and more indiscriminate than past conflicts Hani could remember.
Hani’s family originally decided to stay in their home, his father a passionate believer in the Palestinian mission to remain on their homeland despite the immense hardships had no intention of moving. However, they finally were forced to flee south shortly after Israel began dropping leaflets warning residents to leave the area before their homes were bombed too.
Hani’s home was totally destroyed in an Israeli strike and his entire neighbourhood has reportedly been flattened since.
There hard journey south began in November 2023 alongside huge numbers of other Palestinians forced to abandon their belongings and march to Israeli designated “safe zones” elsewhere in the Strip.
During the long march south, Hani witnessed many bloody scenes. Attrocities he described in detail to me.
“What I want people to understand is this is not just a normal war. It isn’t just buildings being destroyed or military targets being bombed. What I saw in Gaza is more than just a genocide even. It was unimaginable. I can’t even describe it in words. Corpses, body parts everywhere and you are not even allowed to go and recover the bodies without a real risk of being killed yourself!”
Hani says he witnessed many family members being killed during Israel’s bombardment and many other friends from his neighbour too. People he loved, people he grew up with.
“The worst thing which hurts you the most was when you saw someone you knew. A family member, one of them dead.
Visibly shaken and holding back the tears by this point. Hani struggled to continue describing the horrors he has witnessed.
“I’ve seen the dogs eating human bodies in front of me … and you can’t even go and recover them .. bury them. The Israelis don’t allow you. Many children in front of me were killed, many young boys. Many women too.”
During his long walk south, to seek shelter in an Israeli designated “safe zone” Hani was confronted by armed Israeli soldiers who he claims threatened to shoot him when he tried to cover the body of a Palestinian women laying along the route.
“I tried to help this woman (whose body was left on the road side) but I couldn’t. They (Israeli soldiers) said to me that if you try to touch her or cover her we will shoot you down! They said to everyone keep your hands up, walk straight and don’t look left or right.
“I couldn’t believe what is going on here! this was the first time I saw anything like this in my life. I said look, pieces here, pieces there. Corpses everywhere. It was difficult for me to accept seeing this. I said to my brother Abdullah keep walking straight don’t look! I tried to cover my sister Jennin’s eyes because she is very young and she started to cry. She was terrified on that day and I didn’t know what else to do.”
The number of family members killed during Israel’s genocide on Gaza has risen to a total of 25. In the height of the carnage, 2024 proved to be a particularly bloody and devastating year for Hani, as close members of his family were killed off around him.
2 year old Maryam, Hani’s niece, was the youngest – crushed to death by a collapsing wall which fell after the building was damaged by an Israeli strike in May, 2024. Her father Salama was also killed months after in August 2025.
In December 2024, Hani’s family was dealt another devastating blow when his uncle Maher Abualqaraya his two daughters Hadeel and Nihaya were killed during Israeli airstrikes. Hani says his uncle was out searching for water for his thirst stricken family when he disappeared. His daughters went out looking for him but never returned.
“Sometimes I feel like when I talk like this, people must think I am lying. People won’t believe my stories but all I can say I am not lying. It is all the truth. Go to Gaza, see it for yourself. It is unimaginable but all very real.
“The day they killed my uncle and his daughter. They killed him without any reason. He went out one day to find some water for his family but they killed him with a direct bomb strike. Then when his daughter went to find his body to bury him they were killed as well.
“We didn’t know what happened to them for some time, at least a month, until the bodies were found but even then we didn’t identify them from their body or faces. It was from their clothes. The bodies were not recognisable. It was just flesh and bones. We still never recovered their heads. We buried them, our loved ones, without their heads.”
Fighting for his father
Hani’s surviving family members, which includes his elderly mother Saadia and father Alsayed Ahmed Abualqaraya, are struggling to survive in dire conditions in a tent in Deir al-Balah, southern Gaza.
His father suffers from terminal cancer and relies heavily on oxygen canisters to breathe. This winter, Gaza has been hit with severe rains, harsh winds and freezing temperatures at night.
Hani has started a fundraiser in the hope of raising funds to secure an emergency evacuation for his father in order to gain him vitally needed health care in Egypt.
“My dad was diagnosed before the genocide. We used to get him oxygen gas cylinders to provide him aid and comfort. He has many problems and we are worried we could lose him at any time.
“My dad can not walk. Hardly for 5 minutes. He can not breathe properly. He needs medication from outside Gaza because the Israelis destroyed all the medication centres. You can not even find a paracetamol anywhere.
“My mum as well is old now and has many problems with her knees and suffers from high blood pressure. We know there is something more seriously wrong with her but we are unable to seek medical help to find out what it could be. She struggles to breathe, she can’t walk and she is seriously lacking in nutrition and is very sickly.”
While still trapped in Gaza in 2024, Hani and his brother Mahmood were seriously injured by a criminal gang operating in the Strip. Hani was badly wounded on his arm and head and one of his legs were broken during the attack while his brothers leg was also fractured in the incident.
Hani fully recovered after being evacuated but his brother’s leg injury became infected and his situation worsened shortly after.
During the genocide, opportunist criminal gangs used the chaos to terrorise civilians and extort or rob them for quick money. Accusations of gangs stealing aid and operating a highly inflated black market racket was also widely reported on during the worst months of the genocide.
Mahmood managed to survive the ordeal but received very little medical assistance for his injuries or sickness. Pain relief was also not available as his broken bones slowly healed themselves.
“My message to everyone is I really want to see my family. I want to see my mum and dad again. I cannot live without them. It is hard to live without my family. I feel great guilt inside me when I hear my dad plead on the phone for help from me. I don’t know what to do.
“My brother in-law Salama, who was killed in Gaza and left behind his wife and daughter, I must raise them now and I have to help them and support them in Gaza any way I can.
“I’m unable to get over the loss of my family members who were killed. I’m doing all my best to try and save them but I have tried seeking help but no one is willing or can do anything.”
Hani’s wife Afshan told 5Pillars that his experience in Gaza and the continued suffering of his family has rendered him a weak and sickly version of his former self.
“Hani breaks down when he hears the information coming out of Gaza from his family. It is very traumatic. He grew up their, lived there. People he knew from when they were babies have been brutally killed. He has seen many wars in Gaza but nothing like this genocide.
“He used to be very fit and healthy before the genocide. Now he is weak, he suffers. He can’t sleep, he has regular break downs. It is terrible to see. All he needs is some help for his family, some humanity. We have asked many for it but no one has been willing to do anything for us.”
Gaza killing fields
Local health authorities reported Friday that 14 Palestinian fatalities were documented in the past 24 hours, with 18 others injured. Several victims remain trapped under rubble or in the streets, as rescue and emergency teams have been unable to reach them.
According to medical sources, the death toll from Israeli operations on the Gaza Strip has risen to 71,455, with 171,347 people injured since the start of the conflict in October 2023.
These figures are an estimate and many experts believe the actual death toll is significantly higher.
In October, U.S. President Donald Trump announced the agreement of a truce to end the fighting in Gaza. However, following its implementation, Gaza has continued to come under attack from Israel and Palestinians are still being killed on a daily basis.
The deal involved Hamas handing over the remaining Israeli hostages captured during the October 7 attack on Israel in 2023 and the step down from governing the Strip.
Israeli forces have pulled back from certain areas of Gaza and moved behind a security line also known as the “Yellow Line.”
However, unarmed Palestinians who have ventured too close to the Yellow Line have come under fire from Israeli forces.
Throughout the genocide, Israel’s leaders and the IDF have been condemned for committing war crimes in Gaza and calls for Israel to be sanctioned have spread across the globe.
Amid the carnage, Muslim religious leaders issued calls for a jihad, a military intervention by official armies of the Arab and Muslim world, to save Gaza’s civilians from the genocide. However, political leaders have refused to take meaningful action to defend Gaza amid Israel’s indiscriminate onslaught.
The Israeli army has scaled up its attacks across Gaza in recent days, with the latest airstrikes concentrated on the central city of Deir el-Balah.
According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, 2025 marked the deadliest year for Palestinians. The bureau said mass killings, forced displacement, and the widespread destruction of basic infrastructure caused severe and long-term damage to population stability, economic and social conditions, and human rights across Palestinian territories.
Since the start of the war, about 100,000 Palestinians were forced to leave Gaza, while nearly two million people were displaced from their homes out of a pre-war population of approximately 2.2 million.
Hani’s heartbreaking story is traumatic enough but remains just one of millions of similar tales of terror born out of the genocide in Gaza, each more chilling and gruesome than the next – most of which have yet to be told and, quite possibly, most will never get the chance to be.
A mere taste of the terror
The details discussed in this article are but a mere taste of the terror Israel has unleashed on not just Gaza but Hani’s family as well.
In just a span of two years, Hani has lost scores of his family. All stollen from him in ways which will forever haunt Hani and his surviving relatives. The prospect of more deaths in the family remain very high.
We didn’t have time to go into detail on the entire family’s story but a list of most of the names and some additional family photos have been included below. A tiny tribute to a loving and beautiful Arab family robbed of peace and stability and their most treasured loved ones.
Hani prays that he may get a chance to see his father again one last time before his cancer claims him, urging others to help him to somehow find him access to an Egyptian hospital.
