Israeli Troops Blew Up a Palestinian Home's Door. A Young Woman Paid With Her Life
Haaretz
By Gideon Levy & Alex Levac
Mar 22, 2025
The family's mother managed to take three things out of the house before being forced to abandon it, after Israel Defense Forces soldiers detonated an explosive device in the yard, killing her daughter in her presence, and wounding her husband. The three were: some of her dead daughter's clothes, the family's personal papers and the birdcage with the two parrots that her daughter loved so much. Kifah had to leave all the rest behind, and even now, two months after being forced from her home, she has no idea what remains of it, if anything.
Her husband's two small workers' restaurants were demolished for sure by the army's bulldozers. The sight of her daughter, who was killed by the explosives that the soldiers planted at the entrance to the house, has haunted her since then. Rahaf's face and body were shattered beyond recognition, a puddle of blood collected at the foot of the body, which lay in the living room of the house for some time.
Seventeen people, including four small children, were in the house when the soldiers laid down the electrical wire and detonated the device in the yard. Rahaf al-Ashqar managed to shout to the family when she noticed the snaking wires in the yard, just before the huge blast. It was her last utterance. She died almost instantly. Her father, who was standing next to her, and whom she tried to push toward the bedroom in order to save him, was wounded in his buttocks.
This is how the army invades the homes of the residents of West Bank refugee camps. First they lay down and set off a bomb, without alerting or warning the inhabitants – contrary to the spurious claims of the IDF Spokespersons Unit – and then they invade the house, in this case where three families were seeking shelter from the terrifying troops.
Nur Shams refugee camp, as well as two other camps before it, those in Tulkarm and Jenin, have become heaps of ruins, ghost camps, since the IDF invaded them two months ago. It has yet to leave. No one is taking an interest in the fate of the 40,000 displaced people, forced from their homes under the cover of the now-resurgent war in the Gaza Strip.
In the small home in the Kafa neighborhood, in the southern part of the city of Tulkarm – the home of Rahaf's sister Riham, 29, who's married and has three children – two families are huddling after being expelled from Nur Shams, and are mourning their beloved Rahaf. A huge photograph of Rahaf hangs in the center of the living room: a young woman with a captivating smile, wearing a black Palestinian dress with red embroidery. The photo was taken about two months before her death. The bereaved parents, Kifah, 53, and Fuad, 51, had five daughters and two sons, including Rahaf. The family subsisted on the income from Fuad's two small hummus-and-falafel restaurants, one in the center of Nur Shams, frequented by residents of the camp, the other on the edge of the camp, for passersby. The hummus that Fuad prepared for the two places on the last evening before their disaster has been in their now-abandoned home since that day.
The IDF raided the camp on the night of Saturday, February 8. The forces entered at midnight, after a few days of killing and destruction in nearby Tulkarm camp, and immediately set about systematically destroying all the infrastructure and anything else that stood in the way of the army's huge bulldozers. The al-Ashqar family was awakened at 3 A.M. from the noise. The news of the troops' progress shook them badly, even though they are already accustomed to the army's night incursions – about 50 raids since October 7, they say.
Based on what happened earlier in the Jenin camp, and afterward in the Tulkarm camp, they assumed that the incursion this time would involve large forces. The family followed the events via the camp's social media. The grinding of the bulldozers was heard clearly, even though their home, in the Al-Madras neighborhood, where the schools are situated, is considered a relatively safe and quiet place in the camp. So a week earlier, two more families of relatives who live in areas that are more dangerous, such as the Al-Manshiya neighborhood, came to stay with them. There were 17 people in the house, which has three bedrooms and a living room. Once they woke up in the middle of the night, they weren't able to sleep a wink.
At about 11 A.M., Rahaf, who was sitting in the living room, heard a commotion in the yard. Through the slats of the closed blinds she saw soldiers breaching the gate of the yard and laying down a winding electric line. Rahaf was appalled: She realized the house was going to be blown up with everyone inside. All the eyewitnesses we spoke to, and also those who gave testimony to 'Abd al-Karim Sa'adi, a field researcher for the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem, said the soldiers gave absolutely no warning. Not with loudspeakers and not in any other way.
Rahaf shouted in terror to her father, who was standing at the entrance to the living room: "Dad, look, they're going to blow up our house!" She tried to push him toward the bedroom, where a few others were sheltering with her mother. Just then the explosion occurred. The blast was powerful.
Rahaf fell, calling out, "Help me." She was awash in blood, an awful sight. A photograph taken afterward shows the pool of blood that flowed from her body. There was no doubt that she was dead. Fuad said he heard the rattle of her final breaths, before her breathing stopped. He too fell, wounded. Horrific screams echoed through the house.
Soldiers stormed in, and the family yelled at them, "Why did you kill her?" The troops told them to summon an ambulance. Afterward they ordered all the young men in the house to go outside with their ID cards. They took away Fuad's brother, Aaus, 21. He's now in administrative detention – incarceration without trial – for six months.
Medical aid arrived only after half an hour of coordination with the army. It was a three-wheel vehicle of the Red Crescent, which Palestinians call a "tuk-tuk." A regular ambulance couldn't get through because of the military presence and the uprooted streets. The driver placed Rahaf's body in the vehicle and sat the wounded father down next to her. Fuad says he was bleeding and felt nauseous and dizzy. The soldiers didn't offer him medical assistance, only checked Rahaf's absent pulse.
The IDF Spokesperson's Unit this week stated, in response to a query from Haaretz: "During the course of activity in Nur Shams, in the Ephraim territorial brigade, the security forces checked a house known to be the residence of a terrorist. Prior to entering the house, the forces called on the residents to leave, and none of the residents responded or exited in the direction of the forces.
"In order to search the house, the forces needed to blast open the door with an explosive. As a result of the blast, a woman inside the house, who did not come out despite the calls of the forces, was injured. The forces arranged for the speedy arrival of the Red Crescent in order to give her treatment. When a request was received from the Palestinian Authority to hold a funeral [for the woman], it was approved."
The major medical center in Tulkarm – the Thabet Thabet Governmental Hospital – was surrounded by troops, and the tuk-tuk drove to the second hospital, Al-Israa. Fuad was hospitalized four days, his daughter's body remained in the hospital's refrigerator for nine days. Kifah was left without her dead daughter and without her wounded husband for another two days in the half-demolished house, prevented from leaving because of the all the soldiers in the vicinity. On the third day, the army gave everyone two hours to get out.
They too were evacuated in a Red Crescent tuk-tuk. Now one of Rahaf's sisters brings the green birdcage and places it next to her photograph. The birds were a gift to Rahaf from her Aunt Thawra, her mother's sister, whose name means "uprising." The name of her sister, the grieving mother, Kifah, means "struggle."
At first the army refused to allow Rahaf to be buried. After nine days, the military had a change of heart and allowed a funeral in the presence of 10 family members, with her body being conveyed directly from the hospital morgue to the cemetery, without passing by her home or the mosque, as is the custom.
So Rahaf was laid to rest, a young woman who worked in a sausage factory in Tulkarm and loved her two parrots. Her parents haven't been able to get to her grave since the burial, because the army is still in the camp.
By Gideon Levy & Alex Levac
Mar 22, 2025
The family's mother managed to take three things out of the house before being forced to abandon it, after Israel Defense Forces soldiers detonated an explosive device in the yard, killing her daughter in her presence, and wounding her husband. The three were: some of her dead daughter's clothes, the family's personal papers and the birdcage with the two parrots that her daughter loved so much. Kifah had to leave all the rest behind, and even now, two months after being forced from her home, she has no idea what remains of it, if anything.
Her husband's two small workers' restaurants were demolished for sure by the army's bulldozers. The sight of her daughter, who was killed by the explosives that the soldiers planted at the entrance to the house, has haunted her since then. Rahaf's face and body were shattered beyond recognition, a puddle of blood collected at the foot of the body, which lay in the living room of the house for some time.
Seventeen people, including four small children, were in the house when the soldiers laid down the electrical wire and detonated the device in the yard. Rahaf al-Ashqar managed to shout to the family when she noticed the snaking wires in the yard, just before the huge blast. It was her last utterance. She died almost instantly. Her father, who was standing next to her, and whom she tried to push toward the bedroom in order to save him, was wounded in his buttocks.
This is how the army invades the homes of the residents of West Bank refugee camps. First they lay down and set off a bomb, without alerting or warning the inhabitants – contrary to the spurious claims of the IDF Spokespersons Unit – and then they invade the house, in this case where three families were seeking shelter from the terrifying troops.
Nur Shams refugee camp, as well as two other camps before it, those in Tulkarm and Jenin, have become heaps of ruins, ghost camps, since the IDF invaded them two months ago. It has yet to leave. No one is taking an interest in the fate of the 40,000 displaced people, forced from their homes under the cover of the now-resurgent war in the Gaza Strip.
In the small home in the Kafa neighborhood, in the southern part of the city of Tulkarm – the home of Rahaf's sister Riham, 29, who's married and has three children – two families are huddling after being expelled from Nur Shams, and are mourning their beloved Rahaf. A huge photograph of Rahaf hangs in the center of the living room: a young woman with a captivating smile, wearing a black Palestinian dress with red embroidery. The photo was taken about two months before her death. The bereaved parents, Kifah, 53, and Fuad, 51, had five daughters and two sons, including Rahaf. The family subsisted on the income from Fuad's two small hummus-and-falafel restaurants, one in the center of Nur Shams, frequented by residents of the camp, the other on the edge of the camp, for passersby. The hummus that Fuad prepared for the two places on the last evening before their disaster has been in their now-abandoned home since that day.
The IDF raided the camp on the night of Saturday, February 8. The forces entered at midnight, after a few days of killing and destruction in nearby Tulkarm camp, and immediately set about systematically destroying all the infrastructure and anything else that stood in the way of the army's huge bulldozers. The al-Ashqar family was awakened at 3 A.M. from the noise. The news of the troops' progress shook them badly, even though they are already accustomed to the army's night incursions – about 50 raids since October 7, they say.
Based on what happened earlier in the Jenin camp, and afterward in the Tulkarm camp, they assumed that the incursion this time would involve large forces. The family followed the events via the camp's social media. The grinding of the bulldozers was heard clearly, even though their home, in the Al-Madras neighborhood, where the schools are situated, is considered a relatively safe and quiet place in the camp. So a week earlier, two more families of relatives who live in areas that are more dangerous, such as the Al-Manshiya neighborhood, came to stay with them. There were 17 people in the house, which has three bedrooms and a living room. Once they woke up in the middle of the night, they weren't able to sleep a wink.
At about 11 A.M., Rahaf, who was sitting in the living room, heard a commotion in the yard. Through the slats of the closed blinds she saw soldiers breaching the gate of the yard and laying down a winding electric line. Rahaf was appalled: She realized the house was going to be blown up with everyone inside. All the eyewitnesses we spoke to, and also those who gave testimony to 'Abd al-Karim Sa'adi, a field researcher for the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem, said the soldiers gave absolutely no warning. Not with loudspeakers and not in any other way.
Rahaf shouted in terror to her father, who was standing at the entrance to the living room: "Dad, look, they're going to blow up our house!" She tried to push him toward the bedroom, where a few others were sheltering with her mother. Just then the explosion occurred. The blast was powerful.
Rahaf fell, calling out, "Help me." She was awash in blood, an awful sight. A photograph taken afterward shows the pool of blood that flowed from her body. There was no doubt that she was dead. Fuad said he heard the rattle of her final breaths, before her breathing stopped. He too fell, wounded. Horrific screams echoed through the house.
Soldiers stormed in, and the family yelled at them, "Why did you kill her?" The troops told them to summon an ambulance. Afterward they ordered all the young men in the house to go outside with their ID cards. They took away Fuad's brother, Aaus, 21. He's now in administrative detention – incarceration without trial – for six months.
Medical aid arrived only after half an hour of coordination with the army. It was a three-wheel vehicle of the Red Crescent, which Palestinians call a "tuk-tuk." A regular ambulance couldn't get through because of the military presence and the uprooted streets. The driver placed Rahaf's body in the vehicle and sat the wounded father down next to her. Fuad says he was bleeding and felt nauseous and dizzy. The soldiers didn't offer him medical assistance, only checked Rahaf's absent pulse.
The IDF Spokesperson's Unit this week stated, in response to a query from Haaretz: "During the course of activity in Nur Shams, in the Ephraim territorial brigade, the security forces checked a house known to be the residence of a terrorist. Prior to entering the house, the forces called on the residents to leave, and none of the residents responded or exited in the direction of the forces.
"In order to search the house, the forces needed to blast open the door with an explosive. As a result of the blast, a woman inside the house, who did not come out despite the calls of the forces, was injured. The forces arranged for the speedy arrival of the Red Crescent in order to give her treatment. When a request was received from the Palestinian Authority to hold a funeral [for the woman], it was approved."
The major medical center in Tulkarm – the Thabet Thabet Governmental Hospital – was surrounded by troops, and the tuk-tuk drove to the second hospital, Al-Israa. Fuad was hospitalized four days, his daughter's body remained in the hospital's refrigerator for nine days. Kifah was left without her dead daughter and without her wounded husband for another two days in the half-demolished house, prevented from leaving because of the all the soldiers in the vicinity. On the third day, the army gave everyone two hours to get out.
They too were evacuated in a Red Crescent tuk-tuk. Now one of Rahaf's sisters brings the green birdcage and places it next to her photograph. The birds were a gift to Rahaf from her Aunt Thawra, her mother's sister, whose name means "uprising." The name of her sister, the grieving mother, Kifah, means "struggle."
At first the army refused to allow Rahaf to be buried. After nine days, the military had a change of heart and allowed a funeral in the presence of 10 family members, with her body being conveyed directly from the hospital morgue to the cemetery, without passing by her home or the mosque, as is the custom.
So Rahaf was laid to rest, a young woman who worked in a sausage factory in Tulkarm and loved her two parrots. Her parents haven't been able to get to her grave since the burial, because the army is still in the camp.
