A Belfast-born Palestinian man has shared distressing images as his young family have been injured in the Gaza Strip.
Khalid El-Estal (30) spent his early years in Belfast and is currently working in Saudi Arabia but is unable to return to Gaza to be his wife Ashwak and their two young children Ali (4) and one-year-old Sara.
Earlier this month he told the Irish News of feeling helpless as his family try to navigate the dangerous conditions on the ground.
He has now shared images and videos of his young children in a hospital.
Covered in cuts and dust, his young son is visibly upset as medics work quickly to help him.
He said his mother and brother have also now been killed in Gaza.
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Sending a voice message through WhatsApp, he said: “My friend he was calling me to say ‘they just bombed our house and Ashwak is there and my father and my mother.’
“They were bombed (on Monday) and they moved to my father’s place. They are all now in the hospital, I don’t know what’s happening.”
In a further message, he said: “There was a place called home. It used to gather us all…having dinner together…chatting, hearing mom telling us how much she loves us….fighting with my brother for the TV remote control…now there’s no home. No mom. No brother.”
Meanwhile, a Palestinian teacher who visited Belfast last year as part of a theatre exchange trip also shared an insight as she attempts to keep her five children safe in Gaza.
Rajaa visited St Louise’s Comprehensive College in Belfast along with fellow teacher Rina and three teenage girls.
Two of the girls, Yara and Rahaf, are currently missing while Malak has had her family home destroyed.
Currently in Gaza City, Rajaa shared messages on Friday with the Hands Up Project who had organised last year’s trip to Belfast.
“It’s been 14 days now. 14 day of non-stop bombing and ongoing airstrikes. 14 days of bloody, horrifying, sleepless nights,” she said.
“14 days of mass destruction of civilian houses, residential buildings, mosques, churches and hospitals.
“14 days of constant fear and panic attacks. 14 days of mass displacement, 14 days of darkness and electricity cuts.”
She continued: “14 days of entire families being wiped out of the civil registry. 14 days of killing, targeting, bombing, slaughtering all kinds of living things in Gaza.
“14 days of ‘how much water do we still have, do we still have enough food?’”
Facing constant questions from her children about the fighting, she said: “I don’t know if we can bear more, I don’t think our hearts can handle more of this. We are humans, we deserve to live in peace.
On Tuesday, an 85-year-old Israeli grandmother taken hostage by Hamas militants also spoke of her ordeal after she was released.
“I went through hell,” said Yocheved Lifschitz.
Kidnapped along with her husband by Hamas gunmen on motorbikes, it is reported that she was taken into a “spider’s web” of tunnels underneath Gaza.
While hit with sticks on her journey, she said that most of the hostages had been treated well.
Ms Lifschitz from southern Israel had been released on Monday along with another woman, 79-year-old Nurit Cooper.
Images showed how she shook the hand of a Hamas gunmen, just moments before she was escorted back across the border into Israel by the International Red Cross.
Her husband, Oded, has yet to be released.
