RENNES, France: When Israeli airstrikes hit his neighbors at the start of the Gaza war, 42-year-old Palestinian social worker Tareq Abu Eita saw his whole life unfold in a matter of seconds.
The October 14 bombing blew through the walls of his family's two-story home.
He killed his father Hamed, 77, his wife Muntaha, 37, 15, and their 11-year-old son Ilyas.
Her two nieces, eight-year-old Mira and 14-year-old Tala, also lost their lives.
“It's all gone,” said Abu Eita, tears streaming down his cheeks in the French city of Rennes, after showing a smiling cellphone photo of his marriage and dead son. the AFP.
He and another son, Fares, 14, were among the few Palestinians wounded in the war who were sent to France for special treatment.
The latest war in Gaza began after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, killing 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP report on Israeli figures.
Israel's retaliatory attacks have killed at least 39,550 people, according to regional health authorities, which did not provide details on civilian and militant deaths.
“It's not just a number,” Abu Eita said.
“Each of these human beings had their loved ones, their families, their memories.”
She and her son were outside their home in the Jabalia refugee camp north of Fares after receiving a water delivery when it hit, and both were seriously injured.
Fares suffered a large skull fracture that left him in a coma for more than three weeks.
Nine months later, with Israeli forces still pounding the devastated Gaza Strip, both are recovering in France after receiving medical attention.
But Abu Eita fears he may lose two more sons he was forced to leave motherless in the besieged province: 10-year-old Jud and 15-year-old Ahmad.
“It will be a tragedy if something happens to them,” said the father.
“I really can't stand it.”
Abu Eita said she was promised that as soon as she received asylum, she could apply to bring her children to France.
But he's still waiting, leaving too much time to worry about impossible choices.
“The fare is dead.” If I had stayed, I would have lost him,” he said.
Israel's attacks since October 7 have injured more than 91,000 people, Gaza authorities said.
Of these, around 10 children a day in Gaza lose one or both legs, according to the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.
One of them is 12-year-old football player Asef Abu Mhadi.
He said he was playing football outside his home in the central Nuseirat refugee camp on October 16 when his neighborhood was hit, leaving him devastated.
“I thought there was shrapnel in my leg,” he said, sitting in a wheelchair with a Palestinian soccer cap over his shoulder near a hospital in the suburbs of Paris.
“I sat down to take it off and I saw that my leg was broken.”
Asef was also sent to France for treatment along with his mother Raja Abdulkarim Abu Mhadi.
But Abu Mhadi, 47, who lost his wife when Asef was a baby, was not allowed to bring his five other children — Enas, 13, Aisha, 15, Ahmad, 17, Moayed, 18 and Mohammed, 20. .
The mother, who said she lost three of her nephews in the war, was also terrified.
