‘Fire engulfed everything’ Family describe seeing mother and son burned alive

The brother of a teenage Palestinian computing student who burned to death in a blaze sparked by an Israeli strike on a Gaza hospital compound has described how he tried to save his injured sibling as flames engulfed tents.

- Jason Burke

“I heard the sound of bombing, I looked out and saw very black smoke next to our tent,” said Mohammed al-Dalou, speaking to Reuters at the location of the strike in Deir al-Balah, where charred ground and twisted debris lay between still-standing tents.

Dalou said he ran out of the tent and saw his father pulling his younger siblings from the flames. When he tried to reach his older brother Shaban, people held him back, he said.

Footage taken by witnesses on mobile phones shows the 19-year-old, who was being treated for an injury, lying on his back on a bed, frantically waving his arms before being engulfed by the blaze.

The images, which have been viewed by millions around the world since the attack on Monday, have prompted new outrage at a time when Israel faces acute concern from allies about its conduct of the war in Gaza.

Three other people died, including Dalou's mother, Ala'a Abdel Nasser al-Dalou, 37.

Dalou's aunt Karbahan al-Dalou and her family were also there. “I suddenly woke up to fire burning towards me and my children,” she said at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis. She said she saw her nephew and sister-in-law burning and waving their hands. “I can't describe to you how disturbing it was.”