Deir el-Balah, Gaza – Maysa Nabhan cries silently in the living room, scrolling through her phone for images of her father Khaled Nabhan with his children.
“He was everything to us. He held this family together. When my children died, he was the one who comforted me every day,” she says, her voice cracking as she wipes the tears from her face with her hand.
Eight-year-old Ahmed sat next to his mother, bursting into tears whenever she cried, calming only when she stopped or reached out to comfort a black-clad arm.
“Grandfather is gone,” he repeated in tears, over and over again.
In an overcrowded house where she has taken refuge with Ahmed, Maysa has little time to mourn her father, who inadvertently became an icon of Gaza’s suffering a little over a year ago.
“The soul of my soul”
On November 29, 2023, at 2 a.m., in the ruins of Deir al-Balah, Khaled Nabhan cradled the small, lifeless body of his granddaughter.
An Israeli airstrike killed three-year-old Reem and her five-year-old brother Tarek, the two youngest children of her eldest daughter, Maysa.
Gently kissing Reem’s closed eyes, he whispered that she was “Ruh al-ruh” (soul of my soul) and the moment was filmed, making the 54-year-old grandfather an icon of Gaza’s agony .
It was a moment of peaceful surrender to the will of God that captured hearts around the world.
Since that time, more and more videos have been shared of Khaled Nabhan as he overcomes his loss and strives to help as many people as possible.
He focused on comforting others, even consoling people calling from around the world to offer their condolences.
When they lamented their inability to do anything to stop the bloodshed, he asked them to pray for Gaza.
“There is nothing more precious than your prayers… pray that Allah will be with us,” he told a tearful caller.
A symbol
The world saw Khaled Nabhan be himself. He fed stray cats – traumatized and starving like Gaza’s population – and played with his surviving grandchildren and his youngest daughter, Ratil, 10, and cared for his elderly mother.
His son Diaa, 29, remembers that Khaled Nabhan continued to work as a laborer whenever he could find work, even though he himself was hungry and malnourished.
“He was working… managing to provide for us,” Diaa recalls.
“But we will never know how hard he fought (during the Gaza war). He starved himself to make sure we had enough to eat.
After his farewell to Reem went viral, Khaled “transformed himself into a humanitarian agency all on his own,” Diaa said.
As love and compassion poured in from around the world for him, he channeled that support to those in need, collecting tents, food and clothing for those who had nothing left.
On the rare occasions when Khaled complained, it was about life on the move and the humiliation it inflicted on others as Israel continued to block almost all aid from entering Gaza .
“There is no greater indignity than this,” he said in February from the back of a horse-drawn cart piled high with his family’s belongings as he drove them in Rafah, their second place of travel which they finally had to flee.
“People ask me for help when they don’t even have the bare minimum of clothing to protect themselves from the elements,” he said.
Then, around noon on Monday, Israel struck again, bombing the Nuseirat refugee camp and killing Khaled Nabhan.
His funeral, 14 months after he buried his grandchildren, was seen around the world in videos and social media posts.
Many users shared his photos holding Reem, commenting “now he’s gone to join her.”
This was little comfort to his widow, who introduced herself as Afaf, 46.
“Khaled was a beautiful mix of piety and fun,” she remembers through tears.
“He was ascetic but deprived us of nothing. He was a loving husband and father and a caring human.
“He gave us love, warmth and hope.
“Even when the bombs were falling, he made us feel safe.
“Now I just ask: why? And how many more innocent lives must be sacrificed?
This piece is published in collaboration with Egab.
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