Saturday, 28 Dec 2024

British doctor heartbroken after 35 relatives killed in Gaza tower block blast

A British doctor says more than 30 members of his family have been killed in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza.

Dr Mohamed Altawil said around 100 people were killed when a tower block in Nuseirat Camp was hit on October 15.

Among those killed were 35 of his and his wife Nisreen’s relatives, including some as young as three.

The 49-year-old clinical psychologist told the Mirror: “I found out they had died after my wife came downstairs screaming and crying after her sister told her what happened. I said to her: ‘What’s going on?’ She told me: ‘They killed the whole family’.

“Then I contacted the family and found out about 30 of my relatives had died.

Read More: Israel to ramp up airstrikes in ‘next stage’ of war as Gazans urged ‘head south’

“Fifteen of the bodies have yet to be recovered from beneath the rubble because of a shortage of machinery. I am devastated. My wife is so traumatised she can hardly speak about what has happened.”

Dr Altawil, who moved to the UK in 2004 and now lives in Hertfordshire, said his 65-year-old cousin Abed-Aziz Altawil – who was a UN English teacher – was also among the dead.

The strike came just days after a trauma centre that Dr Altawil set up in Gaza in 2007 was damaged after a bomb landed on a building nearby – with the centre’s roof reportedly destroyed.

He added: “I cried when I found out. It was heartbreaking, I’d been building the centre up step by step. It feels like I’ve lost my baby.”

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Calling on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to demand an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and said Israel should allow vital supplies into Gaza including food, water and fuel – as well as bulldozers to free those trapped under rubble.

He said: “My family are not militants, they are not Hamas. They are like me, they are civilians.

“We are not wild animals, we are not insects – we are humans and we need justice.”

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