In Rafah in the Gaza Strip, 15-year-old Lamar Deeb had always seen something different than the world around her: the crumbling buildings and smoky skies, damaged schools and hospitals, orphans and displaced families. She saw a future where she would travel the world, meet new people and discover new places, put on a nurse’s uniform, and bring healing to those in need wherever they were.
But in Gaza, even the most radiant dreams can vanish in a heartbeat.
Before October 7, the Gaza Strip was a place where the ordinary could still bring joy, despite the chaos and unstoppable violations to our human rights; drones that we tried to forget about; aggressive voices in cozy, ordinary places; and the tension and fear forever buzzing in the air. Palestinian people in Gaza found beauty in simple ways — preparing for a family gathering, going on a school trip, hanging out with friends, purchasing new clothes in season, and sitting in a circle playing Dare or Honesty. Deprived of their basic rights, people felt obliged to celebrate in any possible way to forget their suffering.
Lamar was one of those miraculous people who found her peace in the everyday — her school duties, meeting her friends, and her love for making vlogs to document her daily life and share her activities with her friends. Her days were filled with routines she created to preserve her sanity and as a way of being optimistic — making breakfast, heading to school, and studying with her friend Malak.
After school, Lamar would venture out with friends: trying new cafes and restaurants, giving new meals a shot — always with a camera in hand. She considered her camera to be like a notebook that kept her memories in a safe place, a judgment-free friend that could end her boredom and loneliness, and a tool to bring happiness to others by creating videos. She had a YouTube channel: Ana Lamar.
“Lamar loved capturing moments, sharing her life with her friends on her social media platforms,” her mother said during one of our many conversations about Lamar, her voice catching as she recalled her daughter’s excitement about the channel
Her sister Lubna described Lamar as “the kind of person who always found a reason to smile. She was really funny. She also held out hope that everything was going to be better. She dreamed of traveling the world, stepping out of this small spot, even though she was afraid of the dark and being alone.”
Our world shattered but Lamar’s spirit didn’t
The second Nakba, the catastrophe after October 7, changed everything. Even the simplest joys that we Gazans sometimes took for granted became luxuries. Many of the Palestinians who were displaced in the Gaza Strip couldn’t afford the rent for a dwelling, to buy clean potable water, or to get healthcare assistance when they needed it. When the Israeli invasion began in Rafah, the world as Lamar knew it shattered. Damaged schools were reduced to rubble. Each classroom was converted to a shelter for at least three families. The places she loved to visit were bombed. The internet — Lamar’s lifeline to the outside world — went dark. Survival became the only focus.
Lamar’s home was once a sanctuary. A cozy place in which to rest after a long day, it contained a garden perfumed with the scent of lemons, and palm and olive trees with a bench to sit on under their shade. It was a shelter for stray cats and had a passageway that offered children a place to ride their bikes. After the invasion, this haven became almost inhuman, crowded with 28 displaced families seeking refuge. I say “almost inhuman” because Lamar’s family’s humanity could not be destroyed by the soldiers’ inhumanity. When the Israel Defense Forces ordered Gazans to leave the northern and middle parts of the Gaza Strip, people in the south who owned properties opened their homes to embrace as many people as possible. Lamar’s family now slept and washed the laundry in a single room, rationed their food, and drank unclean water, and more than a week passed between their showers.
Yet even as the fear and chaos threatened to oppress and overwhelm everyone, Lamar’s spirit remained unbroken. She took it upon herself to bring some semblance of entertainment to all the children now living in her house, children whom she considered family, in order to distract them. She organized games, sang national songs, and did her best to keep the children’s minds off the insane ambulance noises, shaking houses, and sudden red flashes that informed us of new atrocities.
The people living in her house called Lamar: Lamar ente fakhet al emara, “the fruit of the building,” an Arabic expression to reflect the warmth she brought to those around her.
But Lamar wasn’t just living in day-to-day uncertainty, seeking edible food, standing in long queues to get potable water, or sitting for hours to bake with her mother. In a time when survival mode prevailed and no one could imagine tomorrow, Lamar was still planning for a future she had faith in.
Lamar felt the urgency of her dream, driven by the hidden voice inside of her: If you get the chance to survive, then you have to help marginalized people to do the same. She was sure that achieving her goals required consistent work, reliability, and skills. And that even in the midst of the genocide, she could still take steps to fulfill this dream. She put her values above her fears of losing her life.
The price of dreaming
One day Lamar and her sister Lubna visited the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) center near Al-Ataya Hill, to ask about the volunteering process. While there, she met a foreign doctor working with the ICRC, someone who represented everything Lamar aspired to be. Lamar shared her dreams with the doctor, her innocent brown eyes lighting up with hope as they spoke.
The next day, Lamar returned to the ICRC — not as a volunteer but as a martyr. The white lab coat that she longed to wear was a white burial shroud instead.
On the morning of July 31, Lamar’s brother Thaer’s 22nd birthday, a day that should have been filled with balloons and decorations, giggles, and the lyrics to the happy birthday song “Sanah Helwa Ya Jameel,” was instead a day choked with the stink of rotting flesh in the street while missiles howled in the sky. Flavorless green beans from a can, the only available food, took the place of cake. The family had been forced from their home and were now sheltering in a tent. Lamar’s resonant voice was silent.
The Israeli soldiers seemed to be celebrating: launching random missiles at Al-Ataya Hill.
“We were terribly horrified. We heard the echo of the fragments that hit the ground near our tent,” Lamar’s sister Lubna told me while tearing up. She remembered how helpless they were.
The family huddled on the ground, praying that the thin fabric above them might somehow hold back the destruction. Of course, it could not. Israeli missiles tore through the thin fiber and exploded in the tent where Lamar’s family was seeking refuge. Utter exhaustion had caused them to fall into a brief, uneasy sleep. They were ripped from sleep by Lamar’s piercing scream, “Baba!” It was the last word she ever spoke.
Lamar’s mother and Lubna rushed to her side. Blood was gushing everywhere. A missile fragment had pierced Lamar’s heart.
“Lamar looked into my eyes,” Lubna said, tears falling down her cheeks. “I could see her pleading for help, but we couldn’t save her.”
Lamar was killed that day, one among thousands of civilians who was deliberately attacked in brutal, disproportionate war crimes. Each one of these thousands had a dream to pursue, a lover to find, and a story to tell.
The dreams Lamar held onto so fiercely were extinguished with her. The only light through a continuous hardship was buried beneath the rubble that became her final resting place. As Muslims, we believe that Allah will reward her with a huge blessing for all the years of her life that were stolen from her.
But as a person struggling to make sense of such loss, I wonder what Lamar did wrong to deserve this fate. Did she pay a price for daring to dream of a better future? Was her only crime the hope she carried, the dreams she nurtured despite the darkness around her?
In a world where such aspirations are met with missiles, it’s impossible to understand why dreaming of a brighter tomorrow should be a crime. Lamar’s only fault was her unwavering belief in a future that now lies buried with her.
