Father killed, mother abducted and tortured: Gaza boy recounts Israeli raid
Thirteen-year-old Mohammad Ahmad Kamel Sarhan, who was taken with his mother by Israeli forces during a special operation in Khan Younis, sobs as he recalls abuse under Israeli captivity
Ahmed Aziz in Khan Younis and Mera Aladam report in Middle East Eye on 27 May 2025:
In the early hours of 19 May, 13-year-old Mohammad Ahmad Kamel Sarhan’s world was turned upside down. “I was asleep at 6am when I suddenly heard the sound of an explosion,” the boy told Middle East Eye.
Israeli soldiers had stormed the home of Sarhan and his family in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, as part of a special operation aimed at capturing the teenager’s father, a senior leader of the Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades, the armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committees.
Sarhan had been sleeping next to his mother, father and his four siblings Yusuf, 2, Jude, 9, Mahmoud, 10, and Wael, 11.
“We all live together – me, my parents, and my siblings – in a single room with a kitchen and a bathroom, all built atop the rubble of our destroyed home,” he explained. His father was in the bathroom when the violent raid started that day.
The teenager said a military-trained dog attacked him and attempted to bite his mother, but he held it away from her. “Then we were surrounded by the sounds of explosions and gunfire.”
More soldiers flooded the room where the family had sought refuge, as troops fired at the ceiling and near their feet. “After that, they beat me and my brothers. They slammed my mother’s head against the wall in front of us, then tied her up – and tied me up as well,” he recalled.
The Israeli troops surrounded his mother, refusing to let her wear her headscarf, as they shackled her hands and led her towards a bus. “Along the way, they kept slamming her head into the wall. They tied me up too, and beat me severely. As they dragged me out, one of them grabbed my head and said: ‘Look what we did to your father.’”
Sarhan saw his father lying in a pool of his own blood, with his body full of bullets. The troops had also taken the senior leader’s weapon. “He was stretched out against the wall. My siblings were frozen in place. My brother Wael fainted before I left the house.”
The al-Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades later confirmed Sarhan’s death in a statement, saying: “Commander Ahmed Kamel Sarhan, the brigades’ special operations officer, was martyred after engaging in a heroic clash against the Zionist special forces.”