Often, when you write about Gaza day after day, you run out of ways to describe what you are watching. I’ve lost count of the times I have used phrases like “Israel’s relentless assault” or “a besieged population” – words that feel like they're becoming meaningless after two years of genocide.
Some other media outlets choose to echo the Israeli government's language, calling bombings “military campaigns” or “targeted strikes”, and Palestinians “terrorist” or “militants”. These are not objective words. They are tools to sanitise violence and erase people’s humanity.
But behind all of these words is Omar. One morning he was riding his bike in his garden when an Israeli airstrike hit his home, killing his mother, father, sister, grandparents, aunts and uncles.
Somewhere, a soldier pressed the button that made that possible, an act enabled by corporations using military hardware that is funded by Western governments and then justified by news articles that read like Israeli press statements.
Of course, Omar is not a “target” or a “terrorist”. He is a child, just like your wee cousin, niece or nephew.
Thanks to the Dr Ghassan Abu Sittah’s Children’s Fund, Omar was evacuated to Beirut along with roughly 170 children for medical and psychological care. The fund is currently trying to get another 30 children out of Gaza who have had limbs amputated, but Israeli authorities are blocking their path to treatment despite the children having been bombed by them already.
The staff I met are doing lifesaving work. If you can, please consider donating. There’s a link in my bio.
This all reads quite grim, but Omar was in great form towards the end of the interview. He, and the other children that have been helped by the fund, are a million times stronger than any military.
Last year, I watched a speech given by Dr Ghassan Abu Sittah – the doctor behind the fund that rescues these children. He concluded his speech by quoting Bobby Sands: “Our revenge, will be the laughter of our children.”
Full article in bio.
I wrote this article last year after interviewing a Palestinian man that is currently in Gaza with his family.
I texted him today and he said he'd fled home with his wife and kids after the area he lives in was bombed by the Israeli military.
All electricity going into Gaza has been cut off by Israel, so right now, he is sitting with his family somewhere in darkness, listening to the sound of drones, bombs and artillery fire.
I was genuinely shocked to win the Amnesty International Gaby Rado award for new journalist earlier this week.
Thanks to Amnesty International, my editors at Al Jazeera and also the Syrian families who let me into their homes to tell their story.
If you get the chance to read it, it’s about families whose loved ones were disappeared during the war.
They’re still fighting for truth, justice and accountability, so I hope winning this can draw more attention to that. There’s a link in my bio.
I also dedicated the award to my colleagues who have been killed in Lebanon.
Israel has carved out a military zone inside southern Lebanon, raising fears it is entrenching its occupation under the cover of the ceasefire with Hezbollah, replicating the
"Yellow Line" model imposed by Israel on Gaza.
Al Jazeera's @caomag11 reporting from Beirut explains. @aljazeeraenglish
Screenshots from an article I wrote for @aljazeeraenglish about the war on Lebanon.
More than one million have been displaced, and more than 2000 killed by Israel's relentless pursuit of land.
Families have been scattered across the country, with some staying in hotels or with relatives. Others have been forced into shelters or are living in tents on the street.
In the Lebanese mountains, the families I spoke to have spent the last six weeks in limbo, with children out of school, parents out of work, money running out, sleeping each night on the floor of a classroom.
They told me their biggest fear isnt how long they'll be there. It's whether they will have a home to return to. Whether it'll be destroyed. Or worse, taken.
In 1948, during the Nakba, Palestinians fled their homes believing they would return in days, months at most. They never returned home.
And now, as the world watches again, that same fear hangs in the air here.
Full article in bio. Can also donate to Action Against Hunger who are helping supply the school via link in bio.
In Damascus’s al-Muhajireen neighborhood, hope briefly rose for Fouziah Alalawi that her father, Mohammed, might still be alive. She and her brother Omar were both studying medicine, fulfilling the promise she had made to him as a child, and the younger siblings had only recently learned the truth—that the regime had taken their father. When the Assad regime fell, the family watched other detainees walk free and imagined he might appear, or perhaps had fled abroad to protect them.
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Fouziah even planned to search for him after graduating. But days after the regime’s collapse, hope turned to dread. She remembered the Caesar photographs, opened a Telegram channel, and scrolled through hundreds of faces until she found him. “I saw a photo, I knew it was him… his face… his eyes… his cheeks. That is him, that's all of him.” Omar threw his medical coat on the ground. “Baba will never see it,” he said. “Afterwards, in the house, we separated,” says her mother, Somayah. “Each person was alone.”
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For Somayah, the discovery shattered the future she had clung to—the dream that her family would be whole again. Gripping her chair, she explained through tears that she had imagined growing old with Mohammed, that he would return and help her, and now she felt herself failing to be strong. Across Syria, thousands of families were experiencing the same moment, their grief compounded by unanswered questions: Who tortured their loved ones? Where are the bodies? What truly happened? “There is no closure,” Fouziah says.
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📝 @caomag11 for Al Jazeera English
📸 Courtesy of Alalawi family/ Bakr Alkasem, @afpphoto / Emin Sansar, @anadoluagency / Zohra Bensemra, @reuters
In Beirut, six-year-old Omar Abu Kuwaik from Gaza, and three-year-old Ali Khalife from southern Lebanon, are rebuilding their lives together after surviving Israeli bombings that killed their families.
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Both were pulled from the rubble and lost their hands in the explosions. Now, under the care of their aunts, they live together and call them “Mama.”
“The memories of before are too painful,” Maha, Omar's aunt, said. “They just want to forget.”
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Ali still asks, “If his parents can still see him.” His aunt, Sobhiye, tells him, “They will always see you, but you can’t see them.”
Their care is supported by the Ghassan Abu Sittah Children’s Fund, which has helped nearly 180 children – Palestinians and Lebanese – wounded by Israeli air strikes.
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“When children are wounded in war, it is not just their bodies,” said Dr Abu Sittah. “They are emotionally wounded, socially wounded, existentially wounded.”
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In Beirut, Omar sketches olive trees and butterflies – the Gaza of his memory. “He hopes to go back one day,” his aunt said. “To his nursery, his friends – as if nothing ever happened. As if the war had not taken everything.”
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#Israel_attacks_Gaza #Israel_attacks_Lebanon #Israel
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📝 📸 @caomag11 for Al Jazeera English
