Middle East: In November 2023, the world cried and mourned with Khaled Nabhan as he cradled the lifeless body of his little granddaughter, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the besieged Gaza Strip.

With a heavy heart and tear-filled eyes, the devastated grandfather bid farewell to his beloved three-year-old Reem, the source of his pure joy amid daily struggles and hardships.

Caressing Reem’s cold, lifeless body, Nabhan murmured a soul-stirring elegy for her. His words, “ruh-el-ruh”—an Arabic phrase meaning “the soul of my soul”—went viral in the aftermath.

The final moments of this Palestinian grandfather holding the blood-stained, lifeless body of his granddaughter spread widely across social media, embodying the immense pain Palestinians endure daily as Israel continues to bombard the besieged strip, now over 14 months into the genocidal war.

More than 45,000 Palestinians have been killed since the Israeli regime launched its genocidal onslaught on the territory, with 70 percent of the victims being children and women.

During this period, nearly 4,000 massacres have been documented across the region.

Since losing Reem last year, Khaled Nabhan, who gained prominence as Gaza’s “beloved grandfather,” cried for her every day, struggling to come to terms with the profound loss.

Early on Monday, he too was killed in an Israeli airstrike that targeted the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. Many others were also killed in the attack, according to Palestinian media.

Israeli warplanes struck a home belonging to the Abu Hajar family. At least four others, including a child, were killed in the bombing, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.

In the months following Reem’s brutal killing by Israeli forces, Nabhan immersed himself in assisting rescuers and medics as they cared for injured Palestinians. He was often seen among children, seeking solace and purpose as he coped with his immeasurable grief.

Videos of Nabhan went viral, showing him helping feed displaced Palestinians in the besieged strip.

In one such video, Nabhan shared that Israeli forces had bombed his brother’s home.

“One of the kindest and purest souls of our time,” Muhammad Shehada, communications chief for the Geneva-based human rights organization Euro-Med Monitor, wrote about Nabhan.

“His only fault was existing in Gaza. They first murdered his granddaughter, ‘the soul of his soul,’ then bombed his family’s home, and now murdered him in broad daylight with impunity. Israel murdered Khaled Nabhan today precisely because he became an icon and garnered global attention,” Shehada added.

Nabhan’s grandchildren, Reem and Tariq, were always seen clinging to their grandfather.

“We were inseparable. I loved her more than my soul,” Nabhan said following the killing of his granddaughter Reem last year.

In a video posted on social media in November 2023, the grief-stricken grandfather could be seen fixing Tariq’s hair and taking pictures of the lifeless bodies of the brother and sister as they lay on the ground, covered in white shrouds and ready for burial.

“I combed her hair like she would always ask me to, just like in the photo she always showed me. She loved her hair like that. Now she’s gone,” the devastated grandfather was reported saying.

Nabhan wore Reem’s earrings on his shirt as a badge of remembrance.

“Reem and her brother Tariq are the essence of my soul. I was cleaning their faces with a salt solution to remove the dust when I found the earring,” he said at the time.

“I used to kiss her cheeks and nose, and she would giggle. I kissed her, but she wouldn’t wake up,” Nabhan said in a video shot shortly after Reem’s killing.

Following the brutal murder of Reem and Tariq by the Israeli regime, “the beloved grandfather” was often seen playing with Gaza’s desperate children and buying them gifts.

According to his neighbors, Nabhan’s interactions with children served as a form of catharsis for his overwhelming grief following Reem's murder.

Social media has been flooded with messages since Monday, with netizens expressing profound sorrow over Nabhan’s passing.

An X user Tiberius said Nabhan demonstrated more humanity in a single video than the entire Western Bloc has in the last fourteen months, sharing a video of Nabhan and Reem.

“Israel and the US murdering him, after killing his grandchild, perfectly encapsulates how they are at war with humanity itself,” he wrote.

Antoinette Lattouf, a broadcaster and podcaster, also paid tribute to the slain grandfather.

“They shared a birthday - she would’ve turned 5 next week. This isn’t war it’s the erasure of families & histories- with impunity,” she wrote on X.

Palestinian-American academic and author Susan Abulhawa also took to X to condemn yet another cowardly Zionist crime of killing Palestinian civilians with impunity.

“Israel is a malignancy killing and destroying all that is good in the world, slowly blanketing this earth in unfathomable darkness. today they killed Sheikh Abu Diaa, Khaled Nabhan, 'soul of my soul’,” she wrote.

American academic Assad Rad said Nabhan “was the best of humanity in the most inhuman circumstances,” in her tribute to the slain grandfather.

“The world came to know Khaled Nabhan as Reem’s devoted grandfather, who opened her eyes to kiss her goodbye. Despite so much loss, he never wavered in his kindness,” she wrote.

Meanwhile, the Israeli genocidal campaign in Gaza continues with 7 more massacres committed in the past 24 hours, according to the Gaza health ministry, claiming 52 lives and injuring 203 others.
 

By Humaira Ahad

Source: Press TV