Somaia El-Swerki21 days under the rubble.

English translation by Rana Shubair. Version 1.0.

00:00 I was trapped under the rubble for 21 days, hungry and thirsty, and in pain, there in the rubble. My whole family was killed. Mama held on for seven days before she died. After that, I was lost. I couldn't do anything. Turn off the cameras. I can't go on.

00:37 Run! Run!

01:05 I'm Somaia El-Swerki. I'm 22. There were six of us.

01:18 Tala, Mohammed, Saad, Mama and Baba. We lived on the sixth floor of the Al-Jothour Building, on Al-Nasr Street. It's a civilian building, of course. We never thought the war would last this long. We thought it would be like every war before, that we'd get through it together as a family.

01:44 But nothing went the way I expected. We never even made it south. At 11:30 at night, on the second day after the truce ended, we were sleeping near the apartment door, because it was supposed to be the safest spot. In every war, when things got dangerous, we'd gather by the apartment door.

02:22 Just after midnight, on December 2, 2023, everything changed in an instant.

02:34 All of a sudden... I didn't understand what had happened. But when I opened my eyes, I was buried under the rubble. I didn't know where my parents were. I never imagined the strike would hit us. When I first opened my eyes, I thought of my little brother Mohammed. We were very close, and I started calling his name.

02:57 It was pitch dark. I tried to pull him out, and when I finally did, I held him in my lap. Then I realized Mama wasn't there. I couldn't see her or hear her. I called out to her, “Mama, Mohammed's alive.” And I handed him to her.

03:15 It was still pitch dark. I couldn't see my own injuries. Only a few seconds passed before Mama handed Mohammed back to me and said, “Our precious one is gone.” I went numb. I was too shocked to react.

03:40 I came to the area on December 3, and suddenly I heard a girl calling out from the sixth floor. I didn't know who she was until I got there. They all kept trying to calm me. They said they'd call an ambulance. But ambulances were being prevented from reaching the area.

04:01 It was too dangerous. The next morning, they told me to hold on and be patient. To get up there, I built a bridge here, because the stairs were gone. I climbed up on the iron rebar. When I reached the sixth floor, I made a ladder here with my own hands.

04:29 It was extremely hard for anyone to reach Baba. Someone was banging on a piece of iron. At first I thought it was the wind. I shouted, “Who's there?”

04:52 Baba answered, “It's me, your father.” Mama said, “That's impossible. It can't be your father.” He fell from the sixth floor into the street. There's no way he could be talking. A mound of rubble from the building had fallen on top of him.

05:14 The girl was calling down to me, “Abu Bashar, look for Baba. He fell into our neighbors' place, the Mhanna family's.” When the missile hit, it struck the apartment directly. The blast tore through the walls and everything.

05:26 It threw his body out of the sixth floor. The mother was here, and her eldest son, Saad, was here under the rubble. His head was showing above the rubble, his index finger raised in the declaration of faith. The youngest, Mohammed, was in his mother's arms. He had been killed.

05:46 The mother was alive, but she had lost a leg. I couldn't find her foot. I did what I could and gave her first aid. Yes, Mama was injured in her right leg, which she lost, and had shrapnel wounds in the other. I sat there with Mohammed beside me. It was cold, and I kept covering him to keep him warm.

06:12 I couldn't believe it. That they would all go and leave me behind. I tried to rescue Somaia El-Swerki, and we came under attack while trying to save her. The quadcopter came. Some of the people trying to rescue me were shot by the quadcopter.

06:37 I never thought I'd be there that long. I kept telling myself they'd bring an ambulance. I had hope, but then I lost it completely. Civil Defense tried to reach me from different directions, and the ambulances tried too, but they all failed. No one could reach me.

06:54 Then the quadcopter came back and fired a missile at me. I had moved Susu and her mother behind a pillar and ran the other way. The blast knocked me down a floor.

07:11 After about seven days, Mama and I were parched.

07:20 I had some candy.

07:26 I gave Mama two pieces and kept a lollipop. It lasted me seven days. Every day I'd have a little and save the rest.

07:42 After seven days, on December 8... Mama and I could barely talk. My injuries and my legs hurt too much, and it was the same for her. I asked her to pray for me, and she said, “May Allah ease your pain.” That was all she said.

08:06 Her condition was critical, but she responded a little when I spoke to her. Even her father asked me things while I gave him first aid. I found her father down on the first floor. I went through here and brought her some water while her mother slept.

08:20 May Allah have mercy on her. Before she died, the mother asked me to get Susu out first. There was a fly on her mouth. I said, “Mama, brush the fly off your mouth.” But she didn't answer. She was still breathing, and as long as she was breathing, I felt reassured.

08:41 I wasn't scared. I raised my voice and said, “Brush the fly away.” Then she stopped breathing, and she was gone. I can never forget those moments. I screamed like I had never screamed in my life. I'll never forget it. She was my comfort, the reason I held on.

09:08 Since losing her, I've been lost. I couldn't do anything.

09:17 I never made friends easily. She was the one I talked to. She was everything to me. My friend, my everything. And now she's gone.

09:33 Whenever I was thirsty, I searched for anything to drink, just to keep going. I looked around and found a bottle of medicine. I didn't know what it was, but I drank it to ease my thirst, just to live one more day. After that, the quadcopter came.

10:06 I'd heard that when a quadcopter comes, you play dead and hold your breath. So I covered myself so it wouldn't spot me, and held my breath. Soon after, they struck the building with two missiles. The building caught fire. It burned for nearly a week, with thick black smoke.

10:35 I couldn't breathe. I was trapped. The army bulldozed the area around us and set up camp. I started calling out, “I want water.” So... They heard me, and reacted just as I expected, but I ignored them. They cursed at me and mocked me.

11:06 They said, “We have Nescafé, not water. We have Cola, not water.” I couldn't swallow anymore. I could barely breathe. I was near the end.

11:21 Then I began to pray: “Allah, you see what has become of me. Send me just a little water to quench my thirst.” I prayed all day, and Allah answered. It began to rain, but I couldn't reach the water. I prayed even harder, and water started dripping through the ceiling onto my mattress.

11:49 The mattress was soaked, and I squeezed it and drank. Alhamdulillah, I drank the rain. On December 21, 2023,

12:07 I heard someone call my name from below, but I couldn't believe it, because so many times they'd told me an ambulance was coming, just to calm me. This time, I didn't believe it. I told myself no one could possibly reach me.

12:23 Then I saw someone standing by the hole the missile had made in the ceiling. It was like seeing something for the first time in my life. I was barely breathing when I saw him. I couldn't believe it. After nearly 21 days, the occupation forces gradually withdrew from the area, and we climbed this building to rescue Susu. We had lost all hope of finding her.

13:01 They tried to put us on mattresses, anything, because we were lying on the rubble. My right leg was trapped in the rubble and nearly severed. My left leg was hit by shrapnel. I was bleeding heavily. She was on the mattress here, so we made a makeshift stretcher and kept her on the mattress.

13:30 We tied it to the stretcher with electrical cords. We lowered her down from here, like this, like an elevator. Some men waited below to catch her. We brought her down one floor at a time, from the sixth to the third. It wasn't safe, so from the third floor we carried her on our shoulders and ran to Al-Shifa Hospital.

14:00 They put me in a car and drove me straight to Al-Shifa. Right after we arrived, the occupation forces invaded and besieged the area again. Subhanallah. At Al-Shifa I got treatment, but the first thing I saw was Baba. Seeing him was such a relief. In those 21 days in the building, I sensed something had happened to him, and I stayed strong for him. After I was rescued, I learned he had been pulled from the rubble too. Alhamdulillah, he was at Al-Shifa, with injuries to his legs.

14:49 The nurses kept trying to treat me, but I refused. I kept telling them nothing was wrong with me, even though I was exhausted. I didn't want to be weak. I told them I was fine, and that others needed treatment more than I did.

15:07 At the time, when I came out of the building, no one thought Somaia had even a one percent chance of being alive, because of everything I had lived through. However hard I try to describe it, I can't find the words. What I lived through was a miracle.

15:28 People asked me whether, during those 21 days, my family's bodies decayed or smelled. They didn't decay, and there was no foul smell. Their scent was the most beautiful I have ever known, all 21 days. Alhamdulillah, it was a miracle of the martyrs.

15:48 Alhamdulillah, I began treatment at Al-Shifa. I stayed about six months. My first operation lasted three hours. I hemorrhaged during the operation. I had an external fixator fitted. Later it was removed and replaced with an internal plate.

16:21 Bone was protruding from my leg, so I had an operation to remove it. To date, I've had eleven surgeries. The last one, two weeks ago, failed. Gaza's hospitals lack medical equipment, and proper treatment is hard to get. Every time I had an operation, they told me it would be the last.

16:50 I'm exhausted. Six months in, I was besieged in Al-Shifa again. I was left without food or water.

17:01 The soldiers were stationed in another ward. Near the hospital, a quadcopter shot at me. After that, I left the hospital and went to my aunt's.

17:21 At my aunt's, we were targeted, and I came out from under the rubble again. It kept happening. After I lost my family and my aunt, I realized that every time I survived, I'd soon be back at square one. So I decided I needed something to keep me going.

17:50 I was studying counseling and mental health, but I didn't want to continue. Baba convinced me to keep going, for my own sake. My field gave me strength, because it was no longer about memorizing books. I began to feel people's pain more deeply.

18:13 My studies became something I felt deeply. I hope I can help people who need this, because once I needed this kind of help and couldn't find it. Inshallah, I will.