'I carried his dead body and fled on foot': Palestinian mother recalls killing of her boy by Israeli troops

After five days encircled by Israeli shelling, troops invaded Malak Abu Sharara's home in Gaza's Nuseirat refugee camp.

When guns were aimed at her, the Palestinian mother tried to explain there were only civilians in the house. But she felt soldiers were going to shoot anyway, so she ducked. Moments later, she realised a bullet hit her 12-year-old boy, Mohammed Abdel Wahed. 

"We pleaded for help and to get an ambulance," Abu Sharara told Middle East Eye. "But then a tank shelled the other side of the house causing my boy to die and wounding me and my husband." 

The family were trapped for five days in their home after others in the area fled. Abu Sharara said every time they tried to leave the house, an artillery hit nearby, forcing them back. 

Israeli tanks and bulldozers eventually arrived near their home, razing a section of it and storming in. 

That's when Abdel Wahed was shot. 

Afterwards, Israeli forces told everyone in the house to leave before arresting Abu Sharara's husband and brother-in-law. 

Traumatised, exhausted and with blood stains on her clothes, she recalled the journey to the nearest hospital.

"I carried his dead body and fled on foot all the way to the al-Aqsa Hospital.

"It was horrifying. We saw death a thousand times in one moment." 

Reporting by Osama Kahlout in Deir al-Balah, the Gaza Strip.