On Tuesday night, in the Qarara area east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, brothers Muhammad and Ibrahim Hamidi decided to take their children and flee to a less dangerous location east of the city. The sound of heavy gunfire from tanks stationed near their home after a brutal night of nonstop shelling and bombardment pushed them to head toward the Mawasi area of Khan Younis, the same coastal stretch of land that had served as a so-called “safe zone” throughout the war.

The brothers arrived and set up their tents. In the middle of the night, Muhammad heard the sound of bombing. He emerged from his tent, hundreds of meters away from his brother Ibrahim’s. He was rushing toward the sound of the bombs to help people who had been hit — a common sight in Gaza — but he didn’t expect that the bombed tent would belong to his brother.

“I ran out, thinking the bombing might have targeted a family we know. When I arrived, I found my brother lying on the ground, covered in blood, and his wife holding their child, both of them on fire,” Muhammad Hamidi told Mondoweiss. “My nephew was lying on the ground, injured in his head and back, and looking at his mother. She was engulfed in flames with his younger baby brother. Then my nephew turned his head toward his father, who was bleeding after the missile struck his head.”