Alone in Gaza: Genocide leaves Palestinian man without family or a home

Key points

• Mahmoud Khalla lost 39 family members when an Israeli strike destroyed his Jabalia home on December 21, 2023.
• He was the only survivor, having left shortly before the strike to find food.
• He spent three months from May recovering his family's remains by hand.

Mahmoud Khalla, 40, is the only surviving member of his family after an Israeli strike destroyed their five-storey home in Jabalia, northern Gaza, on December 21, 2023. All 39 people inside were killed, including his wife, three children, parents, two brothers and their families, and his sister and her children.

Khalla had left the house shortly before the strike to search for food amid an Israeli siege. He told Al Jazeera he heard a huge explosion about 15 minutes after leaving, then ran back and found his own home had been hit.

Rescue efforts blocked

Khalla and neighbours tried to reach anyone trapped under the rubble, but Israeli air attacks, quadcopters and surveillance aircraft kept targeting the area. He said a surveillance aircraft dropped a bomb on them, forcing them to flee until the next morning.

Ambulances and civil defence teams could not reach the site that night. When Khalla returned the following morning and called out to his family, nobody answered. He said the five floors of rubble made it impossible to pull anyone out.

I felt a great sense of relief when I finally buried them.

— Mahmoud Khalla

Months alone and homeless

With his home destroyed and most relatives killed or displaced south, Khalla had nowhere to go. He said his uncles' house opposite had been targeted nine days earlier, killing 18 people. He spent months sleeping in streets, cars or any open vehicle he could find.

After a ceasefire was announced for Gaza in October 2025, Khalla began recovering his family's remains himself, starting around May this year. The process took three months, with help from friends and neighbours, and he buried them at a cemetery near Jabalia an-Nazla.