Fayez Elhasani always wakes up in the dead of night at the same time an Israeli airstrike hit the home where he was sheltering in Gaza, killing 10 members of his family.
Asleep at 2.30am, he was flung 12m with his wife Sara across the ground-level home that was reduced to rubble on October 24.
Five of his ribs were crushed in the impact and his leg was shattered.
The loss of his five grandchildren (the youngest less than one year old), his son Mohammad and his wife, and two daughters as well as the husband of one has been unfathomable for him.
"What was the fault of these children being killed for no reason? Thousands and thousands of children have been martyred senselessly," he told AAP.
"I'm crying for the kids who are going through these horrors we've never seen on this scale ever before.
"This is not a war, it's a genocide."
The strike in Khan Younis came a few weeks into the 10-month offensive that Israel has waged on Gaza since October 7 in response to Hamas militants killing 1200 Israelis and kidnapping 250 hostages in a surprise cross-border attack.
The death toll on the Palestinian side has risen to about 40,000 killed including nearly 15,000 children, according to the health ministry.
A prolific painter with hundreds of colourful works under his belt, Mr Elhasani has exhibited in many galleries internationally, and had some of his canvasses shipped to Sydney several years ago for a show.
They are the only remnants of the once-thriving Rawasi art gallery that he founded which was also destroyed in the bombings on the blockaded enclave.
The 72-year-old is waiting to hear back from surgeons in Sydney on when he can have a leg operation to reduce the burns on his skin and fix protruding smashed bones.
"The night of the strike I couldn't feel anything, I couldn't hear anything but in the last fortnight I have been getting nightmares, seeing vivid visions of the destruction," he said.
"I sometimes cry because there's nothing to say. It's cruel how you lose the closest people in an instant."
Two of his grandchildren, Fayez and Fatima, were pulled from the ruins of the home and are with their cousins adjusting to their new surroundings.
"Fayez, my grandson, barely survived with shrapnel lodged everywhere, his entire body is still burned from top to bottom," said Mr Elhasani.
The quiet teenager, who shares his grandfather's name, also needs several plastic surgeries to fully recover.
Another son of Mr Elhasani, Yousef, is severely wounded in Cairo. He has been unable to secure a tourist visa which his sister Ranad applied for in November.
She is hoping he can be reunited with his family soon in Sydney to continue his around-the-clock care.
Home Affairs officials revealed in May the department had approved 2686 tourist visas while rejecting 4614.
Senator David Pocock on Tuesday urgently called for new immigration minister Tony Burke to grant humanitarian visas to fleeing Palestinians, as the government has done for Afghans and Ukrainians in recent years.
"I never thought one day I'd be forced to leave my country", Mr Elhasani said, remembering his leisurely walks by the Mediterranean Sea.
"This is the nakba (catastrophe) of all nakbas ... our homes and possessions have been lost, our lives have been upturned but Palestine, as we say, is a mother that will always birth new generations," he said.
