The martyr’s wife

On February 29, 2024, my husband Naseem Mishaal, 25, walked several kilometers from Beit Lahia to the Nabulsi roundabout west of Gaza City, hoping to get flour for his family. We had been apart for almost two months at that point, after I decided to move with my parents and sisters to southern Gaza in early January, fearing for my unborn child as I entered the second trimester of my pregnancy. My husband decided to stay with his family in the north because he couldn’t leave his parents.

But on that fateful day, Naseem became one of the more than 150 martyrs who were killed by Israeli forces in what has become known as the “flour massacre.” At least 180 others were injured on that day while hoping to get food for their starving families.

Before the war, we lived a simple, beautiful, and peaceful life, like any family. We had our little daughter, Rahma, and we were expecting another. Now, at 23 years old, I am a widow with two daughters who will grow up without a father, without grandparents, without uncles, aunts, or cousins. 

Killed for a bag of flour

Naseem and I got married in August 2019. We had known each other since childhood. I loved him very much, and he reciprocated the feeling. I married a brave and kind man who loved his family and was ready to do anything for them.

Naseem held a bachelor’s degree in commerce and worked as an accountant in a library, which has since been bombed. There are no Naseem and no library anymore. I studied mathematics for two years at university and then stopped after I became pregnant with our first daughter, Rahma, who we named after Naseem’s mother. I was planning to continue my studies, but the war had other plans.

Naseem hadn’t met our second daughter yet. I talked to him every day on the phone, and he was very excited for her arrival. He told me he wanted to name her Nisma after his older sister. We dreamed of the moment we would meet again.

Whenever I spoke with my husband on the phone, he always told me about the dire situation in the north. He and his parents, like everyone he knew, were suffering from hunger as the aid reaching them was very scarce, leaving them no other option than resorting to eating animal feed. Canned food, on the rare occasion it was available, was very expensive. Naseem lost a lot of weight, and everyone in the north grew extremely weak from starvation.

Naseem risked his life for his family because he couldn’t bear to see his elderly parents suffer from stomach pains. When Naseem heard that there were aid trucks loaded with flour passing through Nabulsi roundabout, he told everyone that he would take the risk and go there. He was among hundreds of hungry Palestinians gathered there around 4:00 am when Israeli snipers started firing at the crowd.

I had spoken to Naseem at 8:00 pm the previous day, not knowing it would be our last conversation. He ended the call by entrusting me with two-year-old Rahma, telling me how excited he was for the arrival of our second daughter, and said he hoped we would reunite before she was born.

That horrific morning, I tried to call Naseem to check on him as usual, but he didn’t answer. I thought this was because of poor network coverage, as has often been the case during this war. I called his parents, but the service was cut off, and I couldn’t reach any of them. Fear began to creep into my veins, but I couldn’t believe that Naseem had been martyred and left me while I was pregnant. Maybe he was injured and needed me by his side. Maybe he survived and nothing happened to him. I felt that he had to be alive.

The hours that passed felt like years. When the connection was finally restored, I wish it hadn’t. Naseem’s family told me they found his body among those that had arrived at Kamal Adwan hospital.

I avoided using the internet for a week so I wouldn’t see videos about this massacre. My husband was killed just for a bag of flour! My mind couldn’t believe it.

Naseem was buried far from me, without me being able to hold him or give him a final farewell kiss.

‘Sorry, the connection with our loved ones has been cut off’

I hadn’t yet recovered from the news of my husband’s martyrdom, when only two days later, I learned that I had lost my husband’s entire family.

They had gathered on March 1 to hold a mourning ceremony for Naseem when an Israeli missile hit the building, which collapsed on their heads. Mishaal Hamdouna — Naseem’s father and my uncle — his wife, sons, daughters, and grandchildren… in total, 22 people were killed that day.

When I read a brief report on a Telegram news channel stating that warplanes had dropped a missile on a three-story residential building belonging to the Hamdouna family in the same area where my husband’s family home is located, fear ran through my body. Could it be that the occupation targeted the mourning ceremony held for Naseem at my uncle’s house? The whole family had gathered to support each other. I tried to contact them, but again there was no network. 

I asked a friend abroad to contact them or someone we know to check on their safety, in case there was a problem with my network in southern Gaza, but each time she tried calling, she fell on the same automated recording: “Sorry, the connection with our loved ones in the beloved Gaza Strip has been cut off.” 

It took 11 hours before a neighbor confirmed the news of this second massacre. I felt lost, scared, unable to do anything. I wanted to do something, I wanted to go back north. I wanted to hug my husband one last time, I wanted to see my uncle and his wife and participate in their mourning and burial, but my hands were tied. It used to take no more than two hours by car to go from southern Gaza to the north, but how could I go back now?

My uncle Mishaal was a kind and gentle man in his 50s, who lived next door to us in Beit Lahia. Whenever I went to the market before the war, he would smile at me and ask me to take care of my husband and daughter Rahma. He told me that the difficult life would begin after I finished my studies. But, dear uncle, the difficult life began before I finished my studies!

Nine months have passed since the “disconnection from our loved ones in the beloved Gaza Strip.” Nine months knowing that I lost my uncle’s family and my husband’s family.

I gave birth to my daughter a few months ago. I named her Nisma, as per her father’s wishes. Nisma was born without seeing her father, without him there to buy her clothes or toys.

My daughters need me now more than before. For the first time, I feel that my life is not mine, it belongs to my daughters. What if something happened to me? Would they be left without a father and a mother?