GAZA – On a donkey cart, Palestinian mother Yusra al-Kilani (al-Shafi'i) entered the courtyard of Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah city, in the central Gaza Strip, on Tuesday evening, November 7, with the body of her son, Ibrahim.
Yusra, known as "um Hassan", said that the Israeli occupation forces killed her 30-year-old son in Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, south of Gaza City, 10 days ago, and that his body remained lying on the ground, and ambulances could not retrieve him.
Human rights organizations say that the occupation forces, which penetrated into the area south of Gaza City, prevent ambulances from retrieving the bodies of Palestinian martyrs killed in the past days.
I recognized him from his clothes.
Um Hassan told reporters that she decided to retrieve her son's body "by any means", and to do so risked herself, entering the area on a donkey cart.
"The occupation soldiers approached me, then left me," she said, adding that she recognized her son's body from his belt and clothes, as he had "decomposed."
"I threw a blanket at him, pulled him on the cart and brought him to the hospital," she said, adding that although she mourned his death, she expressed her "happiness" that his body had been recovered in preparation for burial.
In response to a question to the correspondent of Al Jazeera Net about the reasons for her son's orientation to the place, she said that he went to transport his brother and children from the area, which was witnessing an attack by the occupation army with rockets and white phosphorus bombs, but the occupation soldiers killed him, and did not allow ambulances to withdraw him.
Um Hassan said she saw four other bodies dumped in the area.
Yusra al-Kilani identified my son's body from his belt and clothes after his body decomposed (Al Jazeera)
Hundreds of martyrs in the streets
The head of the government media office in Gaza, Salameh Maarouf, had said in a previous statement that "dozens of appeals reached the concerned authorities, about the presence of hundreds of martyrs in the streets and areas near Al-Rashid Al-Sahili Street, west of Gaza, and Street No. 10 (East), which the occupation claimed is a safe corridor, through which the displaced can pass, and they were bombed while trying to cross it."
A young man displaced from Gaza also published a video clip, circulated by some satellite channels and accounts on social networks, showing the bodies of martyrs lying on both sides of Rashid Street.