My cousin Ziyad was too young to die. He was sleeping at home in Khan Yunis refugee camp when the bombs fell just before midnight on April 18. After they heard the explosion, my cousins Mohammed and Moatsem ran to save him, but he had already died in his bed, they said. He was 44.
Ziyad was a social worker for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, working with vulnerable families in Gaza’s refugee camps. Every summer when I visited Gaza from my home in Canada, he would buy my little son candies from Asa’ad’s shop — now gone with Asa’ad (who was killed in October 2023) — insisting that Gaza’s candies were the best in the world.
Everyone in Khan Yunis knew him for his calm presence, gentle spirit and warm smile. He was always ready to help — the words “no” or “I cannot” were never part of his vocabulary. The night before he was killed, he visited the wounded and sick, including my uncle, Kamal.
These attacks come mostly at night, when people steal what sleep they can from the endless explosions and cries for help. Since Israel cut off the electricity supply to Gaza, their light and noise pierce the intense darkness that falls after sundown. It was the middle of the night when a missile struck the home of Ziyad’s family. The multistory building had five apartments, all filled with people — three of Ziyad’s siblings and their families, and several displaced family members who had sought shelter there after losing their homes.
Khan Yunis camp is where my grandparents sought refuge after the Nakba — meaning “the catastrophe” in Arabic, referring to the mass displacement of Palestinians during the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 — and my family has lived there ever since. Ziyad seems to have been killed instantly. His wife, Samah and four children — Abboud, Duha, Leen and Obada — were wounded.
His brother Islam was severely injured, and remains unconscious in the partially functional Nasser hospital. Islam’s wife, Du’aa, was killed instantly. One of their children, Ahmed, was thrown from the second floor to the ground by the force of the explosion — doctors are talking about fractures in his pelvis and legs. Ziyad’s sister, Hala, was also wounded, along with her children — Malak, Nour and Mohammad. Three of Mohammad’s limbs were amputated.
I will never forget the video I saw on Telegram of Hala, walking the corridors of Nasser hospital, her face carrying more grief than any heart should bear.
Another of Ziyad’s brothers, Imad, and his entire family — his wife, Nihal, and their seven children, Mohammad, Muhand, Mu’ayyad, Mu’min and their triplet girls Dima, Rima and Rita — were also injured. In total, 15 children under the age of 15 were injured in my family, in this single strike.
According to the UN Children’s Fund, 15,600 Palestinian children have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023; nearly 600 children have been killed and more than 1,600 injured since Israel resumed its assaults on March 18. Entire family lines have been erased, homes turned into graves.
My cousins tell me that among the children killed on April 18 was 20-month-old Kenan, the only son of photojournalist Ahmad Adwan, whose family had sought shelter in Ziyad’s home. Kenan was born after 18 years of his parents’ struggle with infertility and countless costly medical treatments. His life was stolen before it had even begun.
Months earlier, Ziyad was abducted by the Israeli army from the home where he eventually died in, and held for several months. When he was finally released, he could not recognize Khan Yunis, where he grew up. The destruction was so complete that it obliterated most familiar landmarks of the city and camp. The streets he had once known were unrecognizable ruins.
However, what he recognized was the tenacity of the people who face up to any danger to bring hope and healing.
The circumstances of Ziyad’s own death demonstrate this. When the attack occurred, Mohammed, 26, was sitting with his father and his young brother Moatsem, 17. They heard the whistle of a missile — a brief few seconds — then a devastating explosion shattered windows, doors and lives. Stones and debris rained down on their roof, injuring Mohammed’s arm. Without hesitation, Mohammed and Moatsem bolted outside, into the darkness. Their father shouted for them to stay inside, fearing a “double-tap” strike — a tactic that targets first responders.
The boys told me how they ran toward the thick smoke and dust. At least 20 other people were already gathered, searching desperately in the dark with nothing but the weak glow of their phone lights. There were small shovels to help with the rescue, but most survivors and neighbors were left to claw through the debris with their bare hands.
Large slabs of ceiling had collapsed; anyone trapped beneath them stood no chance. Yet people charged into the wreckage without pause, pulling the wounded from the rubble, cradling lifeless children and shouting out names into the chaos.
This is not the first time my family has been hit. On Oct. 26, 2023, bombs rained down on our residential quarter in Khan Yunis without warning, killing more than 60 people — 45 of them members of my family. Back then, Ziyad was one of the first to rush to try to rescue his relatives. This time, it was too late to rescue him. I have long since stopped counting those I have lost.
My family’s story echoes those of countless families across Gaza whose lives have been shrouded in the darkness of this genocide. I believe that to tell their stories is to defy the darkness. To demand justice is not to ask for charity — it is a moral obligation. My family was not collateral damage. They were teachers, doctors, students, engineers, social workers, mothers and children — each one snuffed out too early.
What offers me solace is that, in the face of this unimaginable cruelty, Palestinians still run to save one another. In pitch darkness, even amid falling rubble and suffocating dust, the light of Palestinian dignity refuses to be extinguished. These lights call all of us to be witnesses to the brutality, and are lights of hope that the suffering of Palestinians can be brought to an end immediately.
Ghada Ageel, a third-generation Palestinian refugee, worked as a translator for The Guardian in Gaza from 2000 to 2006. She is a visiting professor at the Department of Political Science at the University of Alberta.
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