Israel-Gaza: Londoner loses 42 family members

Khitam Attaallah Elian said: "I couldn't understand the news and started screaming"

A Palestinian woman who lost 42 relatives in a Gaza bomb strike has said she wants to bring her surviving loved ones to safety in London.

Khitam Attaallah Elian, from west London, was told more than half of her relatives had been killed in the middle of the night when her sister's home was destroyed.

Her sister-in-law, two nieces and nephew survived.

Mrs Attaallah Elian has now flown to Egypt to help as much as she can.

'I started screaming'

Recalling the night she was told of their deaths in the bombing on 21 November, Mrs Attaallah Elian told the BBC: "My daughter came to my room and turned on the light. She said, 'Mama, Aunt Ayah's house has been bombed'.

"I couldn't understand the news and started screaming. My daughter and husband tried to calm me down and I was asking, 'All of them? All of them?'"

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Pictures show what is left of Mrs Attaallah Elian's sister's house after the bombing

Her family were among the first to leave their homes in Gaza since the outbreak of the most recent Israel-Gaza conflict.

They moved to her sister's house in the Al- Nuseirat area of central Gaza.

One last hug

She said: "Forty-two of my close family - including my parents, my brothers and sisters, their children and grandchildren - all of them when they were peacefully asleep, suddenly gone."

Although she is grieving the loss of many of her family, Mrs Attaallah Elian said she is now focused on bringing her surviving relatives to the UK, because she is a resident here.

Among those who survived are Khitam's sister-in-law, nieces aged 10 and seven, and nephew aged 12

She said she has contacted a lawyer and was "trying to put in a request to the British government but they don't have foreign passports so they can't get out".

Speaking to the BBC from Egypt, Mrs Attaallah Elian added that if there was ever peace in the future, she wanted to say goodbye to her family properly.

"I also want to go to Gaza once the war ends, even for a couple of days, to see where my family is buried and where their graves are; to give them a last hug."

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