What Happened: Palestinian journalist Saleh Al-Jafarwi shared the heartbreaking story of a boy, Zain Youssef Mhana, who sleeps on his mother’s grave in Gaza after she was killed in an Israeli attack.
What you need to know: Palestinian journalist Saleh Al-Jafarwi recounted a heartbreaking encounter with a child in Gaza who sleeps each night on his mother’s grave. While recording a video, Saleh followed a young boy, Zain Youssef Mhana, into a cemetery and was taken aback to find him lying on a grave. Zain, who lost his mother two months ago during an Israeli attack on the Nuseirat refugee camp, expressed his desire to sleep in her embrace.
What more: When asked if he feared the ongoing Israeli bombings or the presence of stray dogs in the cemetery, Zain replied, “I am not afraid of anything. I come to her every night.” As he spoke, tears streamed down his face, and he shared how much he missed his mother. Zain described his life without her as “not nice,” highlighting the deep trauma that many Palestinian children are enduring amid the conflict.
Also: Saleh was left speechless by the child’s pain, struggling to find the right words to comfort him. The situation in Gaza remains dire, with the overall Palestinian death toll since the start of the conflict rising to at least 43,824, and more than 100,833 people injured. Many others remain trapped beneath the rubble of destroyed buildings, underscoring the devastating impact of the ongoing violence.