This image became one of the most iconic The suffering of the Palestinians During the ongoing Israeli bombing of Gaza since 7th October 2023.
Sally was killed along with her mother, baby sister, grandparents, and several relatives. Since then, Enas Abu Muammar (37 years old) also lost her sister, who was killed with her four children in an air strike in northern… Gazaaccording to Reuters.
Enas Abu Muammar was displaced 3 times to avoid… Israeli bombingOn one occasion, she spent 4 months in a tent. Today, she returned to her home in Khan Yunis In southern Gaza. Cracks are in every part of the house’s roof and the shower curtain covers a window-sized hole in the wall.
“We have lost hope in everything,” Enas Abu Muammar said as she sat among the rubble in the small cemetery next to the family’s home. She added that Sally’s grave is located beneath those rubble. She continued, “Even the grave was not spared from the bombing.”
air raid
Before October 7 last year, Gaza was suffering from a widespread Israeli blockade following the takeover agitation on the sector in 2007.
Enas Abu Muammar, who lived with her husband near her brother Ramez’s family, which allowed her to spend a lot of time with her nephews Ahmed, Sally and Saba, said that work was little and imports were severely restricted, but her family enjoyed stability.
As the bombing intensified near the house after October 7, Ramez took refuge with his family at his in-laws’ house, about one kilometer away. The next day, the house was subjected to an air strike.
When Enas Abu Muammar heard about the raid, she went directly to… Nasser Hospital In Khan Yunis. There she saw Ahmed, who was 4 years old at the time, and held his hand. Sally found a lifeless body in the morgue, and said, “I tried to wake her up. I couldn’t believe she was dead.”
There, Reuters photographer Muhammad Salem took a picture of Enas hugging her deceased niece, who was shrouded in a white sheet.
The photo won the best international press photo of the year and won the Pulitzer Prize, along with other photos by Reuters of the October 7 attack andThe war in Gaza.
One displacement after another
She said Israel It attacked 5,000 Hamas targets in Gaza from October 7 to October 17 of the same month, the day of the air strike that killed baby Sally. Palestinian health authorities said that about 3,000 people had been killed by that date, including 940 children.
And he didn’t reply Israeli army Upon request for comment on the raid that killed Sally.
By December, with the Palestinian authorities announcing that the death toll in Gaza had exceeded 15,000 and Israel preparing to expand its ground offensive into southern Gaza, Enas Abu Muammar and other family members moved to Al-Mawasia beach area where displaced people have resorted to living in tents.
They were displaced twice more while she was Israeli forces It is fighting Hamas throughout the south, first ordering civilians out of Khan Yunis and then from the city Rafah.
Now that she has returned home, Enas Abu Muammar says there is no longer any point in being displaced again. She picked up Sally’s favorite outfit, a black dress with traditional red Palestinian embroidery, and held it to her face.
“We are only waiting for the bloodbath to stop,” she said.
