It has been six days since Dina Alalami heard from her family in Gaza City after receiving a text message from a relative telling her they were still alive.

The 33-year-old mother of two, who has lived in Qatar’s capital Doha for five years, has no idea whether her sister, two brothers-in-law, two nephews and three other relatives are still alive or have fallen victim to an Israeli bombardment that killed more than 11,500 People were killed in Gaza.

“On Friday [November 10]“They decided to leave their house and head south because the Israeli tanks had come closer and surrounded the area,” Dina told Al Jazeera on Thursday.

“They made the decision because they said they wouldn’t survive the night if they stayed. We called the Red Cross and asked them to help provide them with safe passage.”

But the Red Cross and Red Crescent said they were unable to help.

On November 10, the family left their home four hour break – a day after Israel announced a daily four-hour window to allow Palestinians to flee from the north to the south.

Around noon, the family left the house waving white flags. Dina’s two sisters, who are married to two brothers, left their homes on the first day of the war to spend the night in their in-laws’ villa, also in Gaza City.

Dina was on the phone with her youngest sister Rulla as the group cautiously walked forward when suddenly screams pierced the air. Her other sister, Lina, had fallen to the ground with blood soaking through her shirt after an Israeli tank fired at her.

Rulla dragged Lina to the entrance of the Bakri building on Shuhada Street and tried to administer first aid. She saw a gunshot wound on her sister’s chest.

But as Israeli tank fire continued, Rulla had no choice but to leave and run inside. Rulla’s husband Bashar Khayal was shot in the hand and his sister Dalia was also injured.

Behind them, Bashar and Dalia’s grandmother Feryal lay motionless in the street, killed.

Rulla told Dina exactly where they were and pleaded with her to contact the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to rescue them. The building was located behind Al-Zaytoun Pharmacy, Rulla said, at Abbas intersection.

Dina called the ICRC. They told her they couldn’t go to the area.

“The worst feeling in the world”

The next day, on Saturday, Dina received the news she had been dreading. Lina had died, her body still lying at the entrance to the building.

Dalia had also been killed and succumbed to her wounds.

Lina’s two little boys, four-year-old Mohammad and nine-month-old Majed, were trapped in the building along with their father Tareq Khayal, grandmother Dalia, aunt Suha, Rulla and Bashar. They had no food, water or electricity.

When her phone batteries died, Suha was able to send Dina one final message: “We are alive.”

Dina flew over the weekend to Cairo, Egypt, where her father lives alone, and her brother, who lives in Dubai, accompanied her.

“Just the thought of these two little boys having no water to drink or food to eat, the thought that they could die of dehydration or starvation…” Her voice trails off, her breath catching in her throat.

“It’s the worst feeling in the world, this helplessness,” she said. “My sister was killed and her body is still lying on the street. There is no respect for the dead, and that alone burns in our hearts.”

Since October 7, Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip have killed more than 11,300 Palestinians, most of them women and children. The health system has collapsed due to the total siege of the territory by Israel and, on Wednesday, by Israeli forces attacked the largest hospital in the Strip, al-Shifa, maintained their earlier threats despite patients and thousands of displaced people seeking refuge there.

Dina last visited Gaza in the summer for Rulla’s wedding to Bashar. The two had been engaged for seven years and tied the knot in August after Rulla completed her medical studies in Egypt.

“My sisters are six and seven years younger than me, so we were like best friends,” Dina said.

“I wish I was with them now. I wish we would either die or live together.”