Liverpool family tell of horror in Gaza as Israel-Hamas war broke out
For over three weeks, Aladdin, Olfat and their 20-year-old daughter were surrounded by an endless barrage of bombs in Gaza.
After being trapped there, they managed to escape and have now returned to Liverpool and have shared their experience of war with Sky News.
The trio, with other family members, were at their home in Gaza City when Israel’s retaliation began following Hamas’s 7 October attack.
Aladdin, Olfat and their 20-year-old daughter were surrounded by an endless barrage of bombs in Gaza
They knew after the attack something was coming, they just didn’t know when.
Olfat Alsaqqa, who hadn’t returned to Gaza since she fled the war in 2014, says she’d never seen anything like this before: “At the beginning we felt very scared.
“We didn’t know what the reaction would be like from the Israeli side. At first they were quiet and then suddenly they started bombing everything.
“Towers were falling down very close to us and we didn’t know what we should do, whether our place is safe or not and where we should go.”
The family listened to the orders of the Israeli Defence Forces and fled south, taking Aladdin’s 97-year-old mother with them, and on route they witnessed endless destruction.
But in Khan Younis, where they stayed with other relatives, 27 in total, the rockets continued.
Follow updates: Houthi leader vows to continue attacks
The family were in Gaza City when Israel’s retaliation began.
Handout image from Aladdin and Olfat Alsaqqa of damage in Gaza
Aladdin Saga, told Sky News: “There was no safe place in all of Gaza Strip. From the north to the south they are using the air, the sea, the land at the same time, bombing everywhere. You’re just sitting and waiting for your destiny.”
His wife added: “Everyday we were feeling that we were going to die and that we are the target. When the rockets stop, we just touch our bodies to check if we’re still alive. But then we don’t know when it is our turn, so it was miserable.”
Back in Liverpool, three of Aladdin and Olfat’s children were left worried, often without any communication with their parents – it’s all Olfat could think about.
“I was feeling very bad. I felt, that I’m not going to stay alive,” she said. “I was just telling my daughters and my son in the UK to take care of yourself, take care of each other.
“If we don’t come back, just try to stay together, don’t separate. And every time I say to Allah, ‘please protect my kids whilst they are by themselves’.”
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The family listened to the IDF and fled south
The couple say every day they heard a relative or a friend had been killed
Whilst in Khan Younis the couple say leaving the house wasn’t an option, supplies were running out and every day they were hearing of a relative or a friend that had been killed.
Aladdin recalls one time he had to visit a hospital with a friend, whose daughter was badly injured. “We went there and what I saw, I couldn’t believe it was true, I thought I was dreaming. I saw bodies on the ground of the hospital.
“There were not enough beds to put the injured people on. People were bleeding, you’re walking on blood in the al Shifa hospital emergency department.
“There were not enough medics, doctors to accept the hundreds and thousands of wounded people. I’m walking through and I’m seeing people just die, and I can’t do anything for them.”
He says it’s a sight he’ll never forget. But this British-Palestinian couple do blame Hamas for what’s happening in their homeland.
Olfat said ‘no one in Gaza likes Hamas… I blame them for everything’
The family had tried six times to leave via the Rafah crossing
Olfat said: “I don’t like Hamas. No one in Gaza likes Hamas. Everyone wants to get rid of Hamas. I blame them for everything.
“I also blame Israel for what they have done to us. I don’t want Israel on my land but I don’t want to get rid of my people because of that.
“We can do something else. This is not the right way to get rid of Israel and this is not the right way to get rid of Hamas.”
After six dangerous and risky attempts of trying to leave Gaza via the Rafah crossing with Egypt, Aladdin and his family’s names were on the list allowing them to leave.
They thank the British Foreign Office for helping them get to safety and return to the UK.
But while here the conflict in the Middle East continues – Aladdin says: “We feel guilty that we are alive and many people are still there.
“All the time, our minds are still in Gaza. If anything happened to my sister and mother who are still there I will never forgive myself.”
Sky News can reveal that the government has rowed back on a national compensation scheme for victims of child sexual abuse, despite it being promised under the previous Conservative administration.
Warning – this story contains references to sexual and physical abuse
A National Redress Scheme was one of 20 key recommendations made by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), but a Home Office report reveals the government has scrapped it because of the cost.
Marie, who is 71, suffered alleged sexual, physical, and emotional abuse at Greenfield House Convent in St Helens, Merseyside, between 1959 and 1962, and is still fighting for compensation.
Greenfield House Convent, where Marie says she was abused
As soon as she arrived as a six-year-old, Marie says her hair was cut off, her name changed, and she experienced regular beatings from the nuns and students.
She claims a nun instigated the violence, including when Marie was held down so that her legs were “spread-eagled” as she was sexually abused with a coat hanger.
Merseyside Police investigated claims of abuse at the convent, but in 2016, a suspect died before charges could be brought.
Marie has received an apology from the Catholic body that ran the home; she tried to sue them, but her claim was rejected because it was filed too long after the alleged abuse.
Marie, 71, is still fighting for compensation for the abuse she says she suffered as a child
In February, ministers said the law would change for victims of sexual abuse trying to sue institutions for damages, which was a recommendation from the IICSA.
Previously, people had to make a civil claim before they were 21, unless the victim could prove a fair trial could proceed despite the time lapse.
Campaigners argued for the time limit to be removed as, on average, victims wait 26 years to come forward. Changes to the 1980 Limitation Act could lead to more people making claims.
Peter Garsden, President of The Association of Child Abuse Lawyers
Civil cases ‘can take three to five years’
But Peter Garsden, president of the Association of Child Abuse Lawyers, worries that when it comes to historical abuse where the defendant is dead, institutions will still argue that it is impossible to have a fair trial and will fight to have the case thrown out of court.
Mr Garsden said it takes “between three and five years” for a civil case to get to trial.
He warned that claimants “can end up losing if you go through that process. Whereas the Redress Scheme would be quicker, much more straightforward, and much more likely to give justice to the victims”.
Victim awarded £10 compensation
Jimbo, who was a victim of abuse at St Aidan’s children’s home in Cheshire, took his case to the High Court twice and the Court of Appeal three times, but, after 13 years, all he ended up with was £10 for his bus fare to court.
Despite the Lord Justice of Appeal saying he believed that the abuse had occurred, Jimbo lost his claim because of the time limit for child sexual abuse claims to be made.
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Neither Marie nor Jimbo is likely to benefit from the removal of the time limit for personal injury claims, which is why Mr Garsden is calling on the government to implement a National Redress Scheme for victims of sexual abuse, as recommended by the IICSA.
Hundreds of millions paid to victims
The governments in Scotland and Northern Ireland have set up compensation schemes and paid hundreds of millions of pounds to victims.
In 2023, the then Conservative government said a similar scheme would be organised for England and Wales.
But the Home Office admitted in its Tackling Child Sexual Abuse: Progress Update that it “is not currently taking forward any further steps on the IICSA proposal for a separate, national financial redress scheme for all survivors of child sexual abuse”.
“In the current fiscal environment, this recommendation is very difficult to take forward,” it added.
For victims, the scheme was the last chance of compensation for a lifetime blighted by abuse.
“The money is about justice and about all the other people who have had to suffer this abuse,” Marie said.
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