The Night of August 10, 2025

At 11:20 p.m., at the gate of Al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza, where the Press Syndicate has had a tent for months to be a fragile shelter for those of us who have remained to cover the war and witness its horrific chapters.

I was there, as I am every night, sitting in the tent across from my colleagues from Al Jazeera (Anas and Mohammed). I stepped out of the tent to look for a better internet signal. The place was bustling with life despite the death hovering around us, and amid the noise of the massacre we were living through… the cigarette seller, the pastry seller, the water seller, the families of martyrs and the wounded, people passing by silently or in tears.

I was chatting with two friends over social media — one from abroad checking in on me, and another living the same moments of death as I was. I replied to his message of concern with: “Alhamdulillah in all circumstances.” One moment was all it took to blow everything away — fog, sound cut off, suffocation, and an explosion.

I didn’t know where I was or what had happened. The screams of women and children tore through the air. I heard the voice of my colleague Mohammed Al-Khalidi — whom I later learned, with shock, had been martyred from internal bleeding — shouting at me: “Fire! Fire, Mohammed! Go back from the back door!” I ran, but my heart pulled me back because I realized Anas was still there.

I shouted his name, as in the video that later spread: “Anas! Anas!” I headed toward the burning tent. The first thing I saw was the beloved martyr Mohammed Qreiqah, fire devouring his body. I turned off my phone, which I had been using to record, thinking I was living my final moments, and began to put out the fire on him. I knew his soul had already departed, but I didn’t want him to die twice.

Then my eyes fell on Anas’s body after they had turned him over. He had been thrown out of the tent by the blast and lay on the ground. I couldn’t process it; I collapsed in tears. Then I turned and saw Mo’men Alaywah sitting in his chair — but lifeless. As for Mohammed Nofal, his body was without a head. And Ahmed Al-Harazin, the sixth in the tent, was covered in shrapnel wounds — but by Allah’s will, he had gone to buy falafel for them. You must have seen the bread stained with blood, prepared for them to eat just a little dinner. All of these scenes are enough to extinguish a heart forever.

I couldn’t contain myself — these weren’t just work colleagues; they were loved ones. I had shared with them days and nights under bombardment, especially after we returned from the south, particularly in the “Baptist Hospital” tent. We laughed and cried together, and now they were bodies scattered between fire and smoke.

I entered the hospital like someone walking in a nightmare, each step slower than the last. With every step, my heart was wrung with pain — not from my own wounds, for I didn’t even know I was injured. My friend, Dr. Jamal Salha, greeted me, patting my shoulder and saying: “May Allah grant you patience for your loss.” Only then did I feel my blood-stained shoulder and realize I was wounded. I was drowning in the agony of the soul to the point that I didn’t feel the body’s pain. They found shrapnel in my lower back — one piece almost pierced my spine and could have paralyzed me — and burns on my left hand from trying to save Mohammed.

Today, I am a survivor of the massacre of journalists at the gates of Al-Shifa, bereft of my friends and colleagues, bereft of parts of my soul that will remain buried there among the burned tents and the screams that will never leave my ears for as long as I live. I feel a helplessness only a Gazan can understand — the helplessness of one who could not save the people they love.

Mercy to the souls of the martyrs: Anas Al-Sharif, Mohammed Qreiqah, Mohammed Al-Khalidi, Mo’men Alaywah, Mohammed Nofal. Mercy to every martyr who fell carrying a camera, a pen, or simply a dream of survival.

Mercy to all the martyrs, healing to all the wounded, patience to the hearts of their families and loved ones — and may the curse, all the curse, be upon the occupation.

— Journalist Mohammed Qeita
Survivor of the massacre targeting journalists at the gates of Al-Shifa Medical Complex, Gaza City.

Alaa Alburai, Kufi Productions