One family's loss in Gaza

The Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 that killed 1,200 people led to almost immediate reprisal attacks by Israel in the Gaza strip.

Israel says it’s targeting Hamas fighters and its intention is to wipe out Hamas. The Health Ministry in Gaza reports the casualties are overwhelmingly women, children and civilians and after a year of war. It puts the death toll at least 41,800 Palestinians.

Here & Now’s Deepa Fernandes recently traveled to Dearborn, Michigan, where she met Dr. Alaa Ali, a Palestinian American doctor who is grieving the loss of more than 100 members of his immediate and extended family in Gaza.

Ali runs four urgent care centers in Michigan. When he heard about the attacks by Hamas on Israel last Oct. 7, he immediately thought about his eight siblings in Gaza.

“I have five brothers and three sisters,” Ali says. “All of them are married. All of them have kids. Some of them have seven and eight.”

He called them and told them to leave Gaza and go somewhere safe, that he would take care of their expenses.

“And all of them, without hesitance, said that, ‘we're not leaving. This is our land,’” he says. “‘This is where we belong.’”

The bombings and evacuations were daily events in Gaza.

“The first one who opposed fleeing is my brother Mohammad, who was killed,” Ali says. “He said, ‘I'm not leaving my home.’”

Mohammad's wife’s extended family was evacuated from the east side of Gaza and came to live with Mohammad and his wife. When they were warned that the area was going to be bombed and that people needed to move to the south, Mohammad again refused to leave.

When Ali’s wife’s father pleaded with Mohammad’s wife, urging her to come with him and the rest of the family and flee to the south, she wouldn’t go.

“She said, ‘I'm not leaving my husband. I'm just going to stay with him,’” Ali says. “So he took his family. There were 17 of them, like her father, her mother, the whole family. So they left and after 10 minutes they came back and he started kissing her hands. ‘Please come with us.’  She said ‘no.’”

Mohammad went to get them water for their long journey, Ali says.

“There is no water in the house, there is nothing, and it's gonna be a very long trip,” Ali says. “So, he went to get some water and he never came back. He was killed. So instantly, my sister-in-law is a widow.”

Ali was at work on a November morning when another brother called him to tell him that Mohammad had been killed.

“I fell on the ground. And then I started being bombarded by phone calls” Ali says. “And it was the most difficult thing.”

Mohammad is the youngest of his siblings.

“Peace be upon his soul, Mohammad. He was a businessman. I admire what he did. He started in the clothing department. He had so many stores. He was doing very well for himself,” Ali says. “When he was killed, he didn't reach 30 yet. You ask him for anything, never says no.”

In the days after his brother Mohammad was killed, Ali learned the fate of the 17 family members who had been begging Mohammad and his wife to come with them and flee to the south.

“She said, ‘I'm not leaving.’ Her family decided that they want to go, the 17 decided to go to the south. They were able to hire like a big truck, like a pickup truck, and they all sat in the back of that big truck and they went to the south.” Ali says, taking a moment to collect himself as he tells the story, “Just right before entering the south, they were bombed. And all of those 17 killed. Same day, her husband, father, mother. Everybody.”

Having lost dozens of family members in Gaza was debilitating for Ali. Daily life — being a father, running his urgent care clinics — took second place to round-the-clock advocacy to stop Israel’s war in Gaza. He traveled frequently to Capitol Hill.

“The month of October, month of November, we didn't sleep,” he says.

He and his family were constantly watching the news to find out what was happening.

“We met with senators, we met with Congress, we went to the State Department. We tried to reach President Biden's office. Nobody was listening to us,” Ali says. “We were trying to tell them the story from perspective of a Palestinian who is from Gaza. They're saying that Israel has the right to defend itself. Everybody was treating us like we are terrorists.”

In his meetings in Washington D.C., Ali was asked over and again why Palestinians in Gaza don’t renounce Hamas.

“The people in Gaza cannot oppose Hamas and the people outside are putting the siege that the people in Gaza are suffering from. They're seeing that Israel is killing and they hear Hamas saying, ‘We will protect you,’” Ali says. “For an average Ahmed and an average Ali, when they see that they are trying to kill us and they are trying to protect us, who would they love? The poor people in Gaza are victims."

Ali adds up the losses from the war.

“I come from a big family. So ‘til now, we lost almost 128 people from our family in this genocide,” Ali says.

He’s part of a group called Physicians Against Genocide, and he explained why he uses the term “genocide,” even though President Biden and others in the United States won’t.

“Because it is the definition of what's going on. Now the whole world is calling it genocide. The only place that's not calling it genocide is the United States,” Ali says. “It's a mass killing. They're punishing the whole entire population for an action of one organization did. This is genocide. Whether it's accepted or not, we have to name things the way they are.”

In the community of Dearborn, Michigan, many people have lost relatives due to Israeli attacks.

It’s pain, Dr Ali says, that is shared in the community. And the losses keep coming.

“The last one was my cousin, Amal. Amal means hope,” Ali says. “She's diabetic. She's an older lady. And she was going to the hospital, rushing to the hospital. The IDF stopped them and they shot her. She started bleeding, and she start bleeding excessively. At the end, they were able to get her to the hospital, and they couldn't do anything. They have nothing in the hospitals,” he says. “So the last word she said, ‘I forgive you.’ And she died.”

While recounting another recent death in his family after his cousin’s house was bombed, Ali’s voice breaks.

“He was under the rubble for almost 17 hours. His son, Sohaib, was in his hands and he saw his son dying for 17 hours. And he was seeing him dying in front of his hands,” Ali says. “So they suffered. They suffered a lot.”

Ali’s phone is constantly pinging. He is worried about his remaining family in Gaza.

“Today I tried to call my sister the whole day. Nothing, no Whatsapp is working, messenger is working, direct phone call is not working, nothing is working,” he says.

He’s worried about his sister because she’s evacuated and returned to her house in Khan Younis multiple times. Her house has been badly damaged.

When Ali spoke to Here & Now in late September, Israel had just begun its attack in Lebanon. He had to rush to a meeting of community leaders who were planning a response to these new bombings. He was exhausted. His brow remained furrowed the entire time he talked.

“We all are suffering from lots of psychological stresses because of this, at so many levels,” Ali says. “And it can show in so many ways.”

He remained hopeful though, even in the midst of loss and crisis.

“But we know that at the end of the day, the evil will not win,” Ali says. “The good and the right thing will win.”

Here & Now reached out to the Israeli military for comment about the killing of Ali’s relatives, and they told NPR without specific coordinates of each death they cannot comment. The family does not have specific coordinates.

The military spokesperson said they “follow international law.” We could not independently verify these deaths as Israel has not allowed journalists into Gaza since last Oct. 7.

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Julia Corcoran produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Ahmad Damen. Corcoran adapted it for the web.