Picking through the rubble of his destroyed home, Khaled Nabhan lifts a doll that had belonged to his granddaughter and kisses it. <\/p>\n
Toys and memories are all he has left of his beloved grandchildren, 3-year-old Reem and 5-year-old Tarek, who were killed last week while they were sleeping in their bed. <\/p>\n
Their home was brought down by what Nabhan said was a nearby Israeli airstrike in the Al Nuseirat refugee camp in southern Gaza. Nabhan has only just managed to return, following the pause in fighting. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey kept asking for fruit but there is no fruit because of the war,\u201d he said. Clutched in his hand was a tangerine that he\u2019d given Reem as a treat, but that she never had the chance to eat. \u201cI could only find them these tangerines.\u201d <\/p>\n
The family was asleep when the airstrike hit. Khaled said he woke up screaming for his children and grandchildren, struggling to walk through the dark and the wreckage to find them. <\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t find anyone, they were buried underneath all this rubble,\u201d he said, standing on a bed in a room full of debris. <\/p>\n
The two were inseparable, he said. With their father abroad working, the family lived with their grandfather and he was Reem\u2019s whole world. <\/p>\n
Her favorite game was pulling his beard and he would pull her piggy tails, he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll let go, if you let go,\u201d she says giggling in a video. <\/p>\n
\u201cI heard Reem screaming next to me, I told her there is something heavy on top of me, I can\u2019t reach you. I said my final prayers and next I woke up in the hospital,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Maysa woke up to the news her young children were gone. Their lifeless bodies were found together under the rubble. <\/p>\n
\u201cAt the hospital I was just numb. I hugged them, I wanted to get as many hugs as I could. No matter how much I hugged them I didn\u2019t get enough,\u201d Maysa said. <\/p>\n
For nearly seven weeks, most people in the Gaza Strip have been just trying to survive, focusing on the basics: finding shelter, fleeing the fighting, getting access to food and water. <\/p>\n
The pause in fighting between Israel and Hamas has given many families in Gaza the chance to go outside, buy supplies and return home to retrieve belongings or even bury the bodies of their loved ones. <\/p>\n
For many Gazans like Nabhan, the truce has also deepened the heartache as they take stock of their new, devastated surroundings. The weeks of airstrikes and fighting have left entire neighborhoods levelled to the ground and many are now able to see the full scale of the devastation for the first time. <\/p>\n
More than 14,800 Palestinians, including 6,000 children,\u00a0have been killed in\u00a0Gaza\u00a0since Israel launched its offensive in response to the Hamas terror attacks of October 7, according to figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health in the West Bank, which draws its data from Hamas-run health authorities in the\u00a0Gaza\u00a0Strip. <\/p>\n
Earlier this month, UN Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres said Gaza is \u201cbecoming a graveyard for children,\u201d adding that \u201cThe nightmare in Gaza is more than a humanitarian crisis.\u00a0It is a crisis of humanity.\u201d <\/p>\n
His comments came four weeks after Israel declared war on Hamas, following the Islamist militant group\u2019s deadly October 7 terror attack that killed 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians, and saw about 240 others kidnapped and taken back to Gaza \u2013 the largest single day attack on Israel since the country\u2019s founding in 1948. <\/p>\n
The temporary truce has also brought joy as those hostages released by Hamas as part of the deal agreed last week finally returned to Israel and reunited with their families in heart wrenching scenes. Others still face an anxious wait for news of the fate of their loved ones, including mutliple children, still held captive by militants in Gaza. <\/p>\n
Grieving grandfather Nabhan says his grandchildren were too young to understand the war they lived and died in. He is not a fighter, he said, and his family had nothing to do with the war. <\/p>\n
Now his grandchildren will never be able to dress up, play, or eat their favorite treats. <\/p>\n
Nabhan was seen around the world in a widely shared video of his moment of grief last week as he kissed his lifeless 3-year-old granddaughter goodbye. <\/p>\n
\u201cI used to kiss her on her cheeks, on her nose and she would giggle,\u201d he said. \u201cI kissed her but she wouldn\u2019t wake up.\u201d <\/p>\n
In another social media video, the two children\u2019s bodies lay prepared for burial in white shrouds while Nabhan fixes Tarek\u2019s hair. <\/p>\n
\u201cI combed his hair like he would always ask me to, like a photo he would always show me,\u201d Nabhan said. \u201cHe loved his hair like that, now he\u2019s gone.\u201d <\/p>\n
From his ruined home, Nabhan searches through his damaged possessions and bundles up armfuls of colorful toys \u2014 the loss etched into the lines of his face. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was wishing, hoping that they were only sleeping,\u201d he said. \u201cBut they weren\u2019t sleeping, they are gone. <\/p>\n\n
Picking through the rubble of his destroyed home, Khaled Nabhan lifts a doll that had belonged to his granddaughter and kisses it. Toys and memories are all he has left of his beloved grandchildren, 3-year-old Reem and 5-year-old Tarek, who were killed last week while they were sleeping in their bed. Their home was brought <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":12223,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12222","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}