Yehya, Mahmoud and Sarah

The image that stuck in my head as I walked away from the funeral was Sarah Ghazali’s uniform laid out on her mattress, untouched as she had left it before running out after her cousins Mahmoud and Yehya. She was to begin the 4th grade on Sep.2, but the school would miss her this year. Her friend Amani who has walked with her to school since the first grade would walk to school alone this year. Sara’s mother had bought her the blue school uniform, blue jeans and the black shoes just the day before. Her mother had waited the last minute to buy Sarah’s school supplies because she was waiting for her husband’s salary, which had finally come through. That Wednesday, Sarah was laying her new clothes on the mattress she slept on when Yehya called her to come out. She had no idea she wouldn’t return and her little body would suffer injuries by Israeli tank fire and would be buried before her 10th birthday. Her uniform hasn’t been touched since.

Ten-year old Mahmoud followed Yehya wherever he went for he looked up to him, as he did not have any brothers of his own. On the day he died he had just finished telling his mother not to buy him anything for school yet until Yehya buys his things. He made her promise only to buy the same thing Yehya buys. Ironically, he was killed with Yehya and buried right next to him.

Yehya was heading to the 6th grade this year. He was one of nine children. He had spent most of his summer herding his family’s goats. His community is a small Bedouin community at the northern border of Gaza, by Beit Hanoun, bordering Erez. Because they are on the border with Israel, they always face the risk of Israeli aggression. Tanks come in almost every week, raze some land, arrest a few men and pull out. When I was at the funeral the tanks were sitting, stationed at the border. There was nothing that would have stopped them from coming in. Yehya’s father was arrested just last September and has yet to be tried, as he sits in an Israeli prison. Gaza was supposedly free; unoccupied when Israeli tanks came in at 3 am, raided the house and arrested Yehya’s father and uncle.

Yehya was walking his goats on that Wednesday afternoon when he lost sight of them. He spotted them sniffing around the rocket launchers, so he went to retrieve them. Yehya followed the goats, and Mahmoud and Sarah followed him only for the Israeli tanks to “suspect they were militants,” and shoot at them. The boys died immediately of shrapnel wounds. Sarah died later that evening, alone in the hospital. Her family did not make it in time to see her.

The Israeli army stated it had launched an attack after they, “identified and fired at several rocket launchers aimed at Israel.” Rockets had not been fired from that area for the past nine months and the Israeli army knew this. After all, the tanks were close enough to see the children, and if that failed, Israel could have relied on the reconnaissance plane, which is constantly hovering over Beit Hanoun.













Mahmoud (left) and Yehya (far right)


I had spent all morning trying to find a driver to take me to their funeral, the second of three days of grievance. The drivers were all afraid to go near the northern border by Beit Hanoun, and they had every right to be. I felt like I was asking them to go into crossfire. Beit Hanoun feels different from the rest of Gaza. There isn’t much life there, not like you see in Rafah. The streets are empty; there is rubble everywhere; trees uprooted, land razed and there isn’t much of a market. An area that used to be green agricultural land has turned into an empty space where no one dares to go. If there is a place in Gaza that feels like a war zone, it’s Biet Hanoun. You see and hear the Qassams we hear about in the news, as they fly over the Gazan border and into Israel in retaliation of Israeli F-16’s and tank shelling. And you see the large white reconnaissance balloon that feels like it follows you everywhere as you drive through Beit Hanoun. The F-16’s fly over the town more frequently than any other place in Gaza. And you begin to understand why drivers don’t want to go anywhere near Biet Hanoun.

The Bedouin community lives north of Beit Hanoun, among razed citrus groves and demolished buildings. I arrived at Yehya and Mahmoud’s house. Their fathers were brothers so they lived in the same three bedroom asbestos house. The bedrooms were covered with asbestos, the living room was the sand in front of the bedrooms and the kitchen was a small stove and a table with a few pots. They have no electricity, which means no running water. Most of the Bedouins of the community used to work daily on their lands and used it to provide for their families, but weekly razing has destroyed their lands and therefore their livelihoods. They receive some aid from UNRWA, but have to travel to Beit Hanoun or Beit Lahiya for everything else. Their means of transportation are animal carts.

The mothers of all three were sitting next to each other when I arrived. Yehya and Mahmoud’s mother were each holding a picture of their sons, while Sara’s mother was holding a poster with Yehya and Mahmoud’s picture with their names. In between their pictures was a picture of a bouquet of red roses, with Sarah’s name under them. “Israel just wants to shed our blood,” said Yehya’s mother choking on her words. “They didn’t do anything wrong…they had no rockets, no tanks…just playing,” added Mahmoud’s mother. They were all sitting on the mattress Yehya shared with Mahmoud to sleep on. Mahmoud would sneak out of his mother’s bedroom at night to go and sleep by Yehya. “They were meant to go together,” said Yehya’s mother, “Mahmoud would not have lived without Yehya, May God rest their souls together.”

Sarah's picture held by her sister

The next day, on Friday the Israeli military released a statement stating the killing of Yehya, Mahmoud and Sarah was an accident, stating, “at the very last second, it was apparent that they were children, but it was impossible to stop the explosion,”(BBC). There was no justice mentioned, or repatriations at the very least to help the community. They cannot leave their area, or their land, as they have nowhere else to go. Where’s the justice for 12-year old Yehya and his childhood, or 10-year old Mahmoud who wanted nothing more than to have the same clothes Yehya had, and Sarah…who was ready to go to school on Sep. 2 but would be missed this year?