we are not numbers
emerging writers from Palestine tell their stories and advocate for their human rights
‘Perhaps Mahmoud couldn’t bear life without his brother, but how can we bear the loss of them both?’
Mahmoud and Mohammed together at Al-Azhar University at the beginning of the first semester of the 2022/2023 academic year. Photo provided by Refaat Ibrahim
My close friend Mohammed went out with his uncle and two cousins, heading to their grandfather’s home in the center of Khan Younis to bring back supplies for the family. But none of them returned, and they never will. It wasn’t just Mohammed; later, his brother Mahmoud would follow him on that eternal journey. Perhaps Mahmoud couldn’t bear life without his brother, but how can we bear the loss of them both?
Mohammed Abdel Ghafoor was 22 years old, the eldest of his siblings, studying telecommunications at Al-Azhar University. His brother, Mahmoud Samir Abdel Ghafoor, age 20, was studying accounting at Al-Aqsa University. The brothers lived a peaceful and comfortable life with their family. They worked in beekeeping and honey production, shared video games, and played soccer with the neighborhood youths.
On October 7, 2023, the brothers fled their large home in northeast Khan Younis and went to stay at their grandfather’s. Since then, the entire family suffered repeated displacement and eventually lost everything. Their three-story home was destroyed, along with their farmland, beehives, and all their belongings.
But losing the house wasn’t the worst thing for the family. They would soon endure tragedies that turned their lives into a series of painful, catastrophic moments.
In early December 2023, they were forced to flee to Rafah due to the ongoing Israeli aggression on Khan Younis and the continued airstrikes and ground operations in the city center. The family fled under the threat of missiles and tank fire, running for their lives from the death that surrounded them from all directions. They left with nothing except their hearts, which were filled with the hope of reuniting after this displacement.
In Rafah, they found themselves lost in the streets, with the exhaustion and fear of constant bombardment weighing on them. Their eyes were filled with sorrow, and they whispered words of consolation through their immense pain.
The December weather was bitterly cold, with relentless rain. Mohammed, along with his cousins and uncle Ahmed, decided to return to the house in Khan Younis to retrieve some winter supplies, such as blankets and warm clothes for their family.
During these moments, aircraft of the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) ambushed them, bombing the house with warplanes and destroying it completely. Mohammed, his two cousins, and Ahmed were martyred on December 25, 2023. Their bodies remained unrecovered for several days.
When I spoke recently to Mohammed and Mahmoud’s mother, she said, “When I lost my eldest son Mohammed, my brother, and my nephews, I prayed and wished that Mohammed had been martyred, and not captured by the criminal army.” She continued, tears streaming down her face and sorrow choking her voice: “For him to die once and for all is better than to die a thousand times every day in the prisons of the Israeli occupation — from torture, from oppression.” This sentiment is shared by all the people of Gaza, who prefer death to imprisonment where they face torture, rape, and severe physical and mental abuse.
The family’s suffering continued, still displaced and now burdened with the loss of their eldest son. They moved to Al-Mawasi camp in Khan Younis, living with relatives in cramped, barely adequate tents, desperately trying to find any way to survive. On the morning of March 10, 2024, while the family — the parents, Mahmoud, and his three younger brothers — slept in their cramped tent without Mohammed, tragedy struck again.
Israeli artillery shells rained down on their tent, burning and destroying it. The family woke in terror to the violent bombardment, only to find their second son Mahmoud had been martyred instantly. The father was severely injured in the chest, while the mother and 16-year-old Ahmad were also wounded.
Amid continuous artillery fire, some neighbors managed to rescue the youngest children — eight-year-old Aboud and five-year-old Omar — taking them to the seaside, without any adult to care for them, and without the children knowing what to do or where they were going. Later, the injured family members were transported to the hospital in Deir Al-Balah for treatment, while neighbors buried Mahmoud’s body in Al-Mawasi Khan Younis. His father, mother, and brothers were not able to attend the burial, nor did they know the exact location of his grave.
Mahmoud and Mohammed. Photos provided by Refaat Ibrahim
After Mohammed and Mahmoud’s parents were discharged from the hospital, they learned that their son had been buried without their participation or final farewell. The family remained in a constant state of grief, dealing with the loss of two sons.
Mohammed and Mahmoud’s mother told me, “The losses are many, and the suffering seems endless, but none of it compares to what my heart has lost. Both my sons are gone; they have been martyred.” She cried bitterly, saying, “Look at what has happened to us. Look at our condition. Mohammed and Mahmoud are both gone.” She then remembered their university studies and said, “Mohammed was about to graduate — this semester was his last. Mahmoud was in his second year. Now the students have returned to [online] school, but Mohammed and Mahmoud will never return.”
When the IOF reached Khan Younis and began exhuming graves, the family found Mohammed’s body outside his grave. The family reburied him. After some time, the Israeli army entered the area and desecrated the cemetery again, leaving his grave in ruins. The family had to bury him for a third time.
The boys’ mother added, “Our hearts have suffered an unbearable sorrow, and the pain of loss cannot be overcome in a lifetime. But at least I am sure that they have been martyred and buried, and I am not living every day with the hope of their return, only for them not to come back. I feel that God is more merciful to them than we are, and I trust that He will gather us together in His paradise.”
Then she fell silent, a deep, sorrowful silence. The only sounds that lingered were the bombings, the shells, and the voices of people pleading for survival. Yet the hearts of Mohammed and Mahmoud’s parents screamed without a sound, pleading for salvation for their sons who can never be saved, for they are already gone.
After that deep silence and a sigh that carried a grief as intense as a soul departing the body, with a trembling hand wiping the flood of tears from her face, the brothers’ mother said to me, “Here, take the clothes of Mohammed and Mahmoud, keep them, and wear them as a memory of your martyred friends.”
Words escaped me; my tongue stumbled, unable to express the weight of the grief, for any words of comfort seemed too small for such pain. I took the clothes, trying hard to hide my tears, but I couldn’t.
