In the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, a doctor treating victims of an Israeli bomb attack examined one patient after another in a crowded emergency room.
There, amid the screams of children and the groans of adults, and the cries of medical staff for more medicine and bandages, Dr. Rami Abu Libdeh saw a paramedic carrying his 9-year-old son, Mohammed.
Drowning in tears, 32-year-old Libdeh held the child, whose head was bandaged and whose red top was covered with a layer of dust.
Holding him tightly, Libdeh repeatedly asked his son where his mother was.
“Where’s your mother? Where’s your mother?” Libdeh asked. “Where’s Moataz? Where’s Moataz?”
Moataz is the doctor’s other son.
Kneeling down, Libdeh asked her crying son more questions about his missing mother and their home before handing the boy over to the other doctors in the room for treatment.
Then, grimacing and fighting back fresh tears, Libdeh made his way to the hospital’s loading bay, where a steady stream of ambulances carrying the survivors and the dead arrived.
He was at Kuwait Hospital when an NBC News crew filmed the heartbreaking father-son reunion.
The team was there to cover the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike in Rafah that killed 14 people on Thursday, a deadly airstrike launched hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a Hamas ceasefire offer and vowed to expand the offensive. To a settlement in the south of Gaza.
More heartwarming scenes unfolded as the NBC News team was there.
The ER was crowded with dozens of children, many still shaking with fear. Stunned and wrapped in bandages, the other children watched with wide eyes as the chaos unfolded around them.
Every few minutes, more ambulances arrived at the loading area, and the wounded were carried away on stretchers by paramedics to the left, some of them were housed in tents because the hospital could not accommodate all the wounded inside. .
Those who looked desperate were led to the collection area on the right, where bodies were laid out, wrapped in white sheets with red Arabic letters on them.
While the NBC News team was there, a doctor examining the bodies found a baby with both eyes open and still with a pulse.
The doctor soon brought the baby to the crowded ER, where he and the medical team tried to revive the child with oxygen and chest compressions. The child was wearing blue SpongeBob SquarePants pajamas.
However, it was not possible to save the child.
“That’s it,” said one of the medical staff. “Cover it up.”
A few minutes later, the baby was wrapped in a white sheet and taken to the collection area to join the dead.
Meanwhile, in the emergency room, a distraught father vented as his unconscious relative lay garrisoned and two children watched reporters silently.
Before leaving, the team saw a hooded woman being wheeled into an ambulance, one of which was a child’s size, wrapped in sheets.
He gently touched one of the bodies. Then he buried his face in his hands and sobbed.