The speaker's mum alleges that the Israeli military was responsible for the demise of her sister and father. Subsequently, the soldiers transported their bodies to an Israeli medical facility.
She has witnessed war and been displaced from her home. The tragic incident took place with her father in her arms, who was fatally shot, and her older sister left for dead on the street.
The story is not the usual fate of misfortune and sorrow in Gaza. This became apparent when CNN met Sham and her mother, Sanaa, at a Palestinian hospital in Jerusalem.
Sanaa doesn't solely blame the Israeli military for the death of her husband and daughter, the shooting of her, and leaving her for dead in the streets. However, she does hold the Israeli military accountable for these incidents.
The arrival of an Israeli soldier might not seem remarkable under international law. Every military is obligated to help wounded civilians during times of war. However, stories like Sanaa's are rare in the Gaza conflict.
"He showed compassion towards us," Sanaa said of the soldier, but he and his comrades allegedly took away the most valuable thing she had – her loved ones.
Sham and her father, Akram – a school teacher – lived with their mother and younger sister, Yasmeen, in Beit Lahia, located in the northernmost part of Gaza.
Sham's mother, Sanaa, worked for an organization that supported orphaned children. Like many women in Gaza, she was modest in her dressing and often covered her face, which bore deep burn scars from an accident in her childhood.
In response to Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7, and Israel's subsequent military campaign, the family was forced to leave their home. They were fortunate when a lull in fighting allowed for a temporary ceasefire late in November as part of a hostage release agreement.
"We were so filled with joy that we couldn't even sleep." Sanaa recalled, "A temporary truce was happening, and we were going to return home."
They departed from the UN-run health clinic in the Jabalya refugee camp and began the approximately three-mile journey home. They were close to home when gunshots rung out.
"It seemed as if there was a sniper shooting at us, and we didn't see him," Sanaa said, "Suddenly, we were all injured."
Seven-year-old Yasmeen's injuries were the most severe, with bullets striking her back and shoulder. Akram was wounded in the stomach, and Sanaa in the leg. Sham was miraculously spared from any harm.
"My husband was telling me, ‘Let's crawl, and maybe we can find an ambulance to take us, or someone might see us and help us.’ But I couldn’t crawl. Yasmeen's condition was too serious – two bullets, and she was covered in blood. So I told him, ‘We can’t.’ He said, ‘I’ll try to crawl.’ But they finished him off! He remained in his spot. He was killed,” Sanaa said.
For several hours, they were left in the middle of the street, injured and terrified. False hope was all Sanaa could offer her dying daughter.
Yasmeen's life slipped away, and she succumbed to her wounds.
"I laid Yasmeen on the ground, may God bless her soul. And I covered her with a blouse. And I told Sham, ‘Come on darling, let’s crawl.’"
Limping and whispering, they left their loved ones behind and sought refuge in a partially damaged two-story house. As night fell, they hid in a bathroom.
"In the morning, around 7:30, we heard the sounds of the Israelis and of the tanks," Sanaa said, "I told her, ‘Sham my darling, the Israelis have come. They are going to shoot us. But don’t be afraid. It’s over. And we are going to die.’ She said, ‘Okay mom, but hide me. I don’t want to see them when they come and shoot me.’"
As Sanaa cradled her daughter, an explosion rocked the house, blowing in the door and shattering the window, sending glass raining down.
Soon, Israeli soldiers entered the house. After some tense exchanges, they determined that Sanaa and Sham were not harboring militants and tended to their wounds.
The house in northern Gaza where Sham and Sanaa sought shelter during their harrowing ordeal. CNN obtained video footage of this moment from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), as captured by a soldier's body camera. The video, lacking audio, showed two soldiers applying bandages as Sanaa spoke with someone off-camera. The IDF declined to make any of the soldiers involved available for an interview with CNN.
Sanaa began pleading with an Arabic-speaking soldier, who denied that his forces were responsible for the death of Sanaa's husband and elderly daughter. Instead, he placed the blame on Hamas and its leader, Yahya Sinwar.
"I told him, ‘Please hand me over to an ambulance in Gaza City. Can you at least take me to my family to collect my daughter? I'm not important. I know I'm going to die. I just want my family to take my daughter.’"
"He told me, ‘No, we can't hand you over to Gaza. Wait a little bit. I might be able to help you,’" Sanaa said.
Sanaa claims the Israeli soldiers deemed they couldn't cure her in the field due to her critical condition. She required hospital treatment, she asserted. After placing several calls, she recounted, an Arabic-speaking soldier told them they'd be taken to an Israeli hospital. As they were being loaded onto a Humvee, Sanaa noticed her daughter Yasmeen's body on the street.
She pleaded, "This is Yasmeen. Please take her to me." He refused. She then requested, "Then, please bury her for me." Once again, he declined, and they proceeded with the stretcher.
After an hour's drive, they arrived at what seemed an almost empty military staging area. Soldiers performed a security check, ordering Sanaa to disrobe in front of female soldiers while male soldiers averted their gaze. She continued to bleed from her leg wound.
"Then they made me remove my abaya and my inner garments," she recalled. "Sham – they stripped her completely as well."
"If it weren't for Sham, I wouldn't have agreed to disrobe. I was terrified that if I didn't disrobe, they'd shoot Sham. Or they'd shoot me in front of Sham, and I'd never know what happened to her. If I were alone, I'd rather they shot me, and I wouldn't have disrobed."
They transported her to Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot, where doctors treated her injuries. Her medical records revealed a bullet had pierced her right calf, fracturing both bones and damaging an artery. She was then transferred to a Palestinian hospital in Jerusalem for recovery.
“This is God who stood by my side”
For eight months, she's had a gradual recovery with physical therapy. She and Sham have shared a single hospital room. She's lost track of her family's bodies.
It's a perplexing limbo – appreciative of their safety yet yearning for a home and life changed irreversibly.
Indeed, Israeli authorities plan to send them back to Gaza next month unless another nation adopts them, according to hospital officials, Israeli officials, and human rights organizations.
The Israeli military denies its soldiers shot Sanaa and her family.
In a statement to CNN, the IDF claimed the family accidentally approached a concealed Israeli position. When soldiers shouted at them to halt, they inadvertently exposed their position to nearby militants, who began firing on the Israelis. The family, they stated, was "caught in the intense exchange of fire," adding that "the troops did not open fire at the four people nor did they aim at them."
Sanaa dismissed this statement as a lie. The IDF claimed militants fired grenades on their position – Sanaa insisted she didn't hear any explosions.
“If we had heard the voice of Israelis, we would have fled and returned (to the shelter). If we had heard the voice of resistance, we would have fled and returned,” Sanaa said.
“It's true he helped me,” Sanaa acknowledged of the Arab-speaking soldier who facilitated leaving Gaza for Israel.
But she claims she couldn't thank him. She'd refuse if she encountered him again.
“This was a miracle from God that the soldier who spoke to me in Arabic assisted me,” she said.
“This is God who stood by my side, and He placed kindness in them towards me. It is from God,” she said. “Not of their own will.”
The Middle East, specifically Gaza, has seen its fair share of misfortune and sorrow, as evidenced by Sanaa's story. Despite the world's attention being drawn to conflict zones like Gaza, incidents like Sanaa's are not common under international law.
Sanaa's story is a stark reminder of the violence and chaos that often overshadows the Middle East, a region that has a significant influence on the global stage.
