Amal Adnan at her graduation ceremony. Photo from the Islamic University of Gaza

I got to know Amal through stories Nada told me within the bleak walls of the UNRWA school in December 2023, during the early days of our displacement from Khan Younis. Each room in the school housed many families. One of the girls from these families was a friend of Nada’s, and Nada used to come to our classroom to pick up internet signals.

We shared meager internet cards and stood by the same window, desperately trying to catch a weak signal to connect us to the outside world, while the distant sounds of shelling could be heard in the background. Sometimes, just to pass the time, we would play simple games like cards and chess, and chat. Sometimes we would sit in the hallway in front of the classrooms and contemplate our lives before the war.

Nada was quiet and simple in her thoughts and in her life; she only wanted to live safely with people she loved. She often spoke of her friends, her passion for her work as a lawyer, and the dreams that colored her words despite the harsh reality.

Many of her stories were about her friend Amal.

Nada and Amal’s friendship

In 2016, Nada Al Amour and Amal Adnan met at the Islamic University of Gaza when Nada was looking for the summary of a text for one of her law courses. Her classmates directed her to Amal who prepared the summaries. Nada approached her hesitantly, and Amal greeted her with a bright smile, her sweet voice saying, “Of course, I have the course summary. Here you go.”

Nada and Amal became friends. Nada described Amal as humble, supportive, and considerate of everyone’s feelings.

“Amal could sense my feelings without my saying a word,” she told me. “If I was wrong, she would tell me that I was wrong, and if she went on a trip with the rest of the group and one of us was unable to go, she avoided posting anything on social media so the person who’d missed out wouldn’t feel regret. She took into consideration the feelings of all the girls on our course as if she were our mother.”

During their university days, at Amal’s insistence, they used to buy falafel and Nescafé from the Akila store next to the university gate, so they could focus on lectures. They exchanged gifts, and Nada still cherishes these.

On exam nights they would brew fragrant dark coffee and stay up until dawn, their eyes shining with focus as they strove for perfect scores. Amal would ease the strain of those nights with her hopeful words: “Just one more week and you will enjoy some rest. Work hard now to graduate with excellent grades.” Their biggest dream was to open a law office together named “Friends.”

They both graduated with high marks, and each found a job—Nada in Khan Younis and Amal in Gaza City.

In August 2023, Nada received the news that her mother had cancer. August 16, 2023, was the day Amal was to take her legal oath, but Nada couldn’t be by her side due to her mother’s illness. Two days later, Amal visited Nada in her office to check on her mother. She continued to call Nada daily, sometimes every hour, to inquire about her mother’s health, treatment, and potential surgery.

Separation

After the war began in October 2023, Amal’s family in the north was ordered to evacuate but they refused, despite the dangers. Northern Gaza was being heavily bombed as the Israelis cleared it for occupation.

The Netzarim Corridor, built by the IDF, stretched to the Mediterranean Sea, cutting off the north from food supplies and preventing people in the south from returning to their homes. Nada and Amal were not only separated from each other but also  had to give up the legal careers they had studied so hard to achieve.

As the war continued, Amal constantly checked on Nada. Whenever she read any news that might affect Nada’s family, she would call to ask, “Are you all okay?” Nada described Amal’s care as a warm hug over the phone, a feeling she misses dearly.

Nada traveled with her mother to Egypt for treatment and then returned in April 2024. Amal repeatedly tried to dissuade Nada from returning to Gaza out of concern for her safety, but Nada couldn’t bear the separation from Amal and her homeland. But after her return they were still unable to meet because of the Netzarim Corridor.

Nada recalled their last video call, where they cried together and talked about their shared dream of performing Umrah, the pilgrimage to Mecca. During every call, Amal would assure her, “Nada, as soon as the war is over, I want to see you.”

Messenger of death

On March 18, 2025, at 2:15 a.m., just minutes after the ceasefire ended, massive explosions shook the Gaza Strip, and Nada woke up terrified. Her small body trembled under the thin blanket, and her disturbed breath rose like a stifled flame. Notifications from the Messenger app pierced the silence of the room.

She opened the app slowly, her eyes colliding with a message from an unfamiliar young woman, not someone she knew.

“Amal was killed.”

Nada called Amal’s niece in the Al-Tuffah neighborhood in Gaza City where the family lived.

Amal was 27 years old. She had been living with her displaced family in a relative’s house after their own home was destroyed earlier in the war. They were struck by two missiles, one hitting Amal’s family home and the other hitting the adjacent house of her brother, Rami Adnan Al Sakani. He, his wife Khadija, and their children Maram, 18, Mahmoud, 13, Izz al-Din, 11, Fatima, 8, and Nour al-Din, 6, were all killed. Fifteen-year-old Yahya was the sole survivor, left to confront the harsh reality of having lost his whole family.

Next door, Amal was killed, her father was injured, her mother hospitalized, and her sister put into intensive care.

“With the first shells, everyone in the house woke up,” Amal’s niece told Nada. “The house began to shake violently, and the orange glow of the missiles covered the whole neighborhood. My grandmother woke up and found herself under the rubble with Amal, shaking her and screaming, ‘Amal, Amal, habibti, get up, come on, get up! Amal, we need to get out.’ But it was futile; Amal had passed away. Then my grandmother lost consciousness again.”

Amal’s family appears to have been targeted for no reason.

After Amal’s death, Nada wrote on her WhatsApp status: “How does one mourn the twin of their soul? Oh my sister and companion, Amal, you have left an unbearable weight in my heart.”

They had studied together for nine years, dreamed together, rejoiced together, and wept together—until Israel stole Amal from Nada.

The Netzarim corridor prevented Nada from seeing Amal for the last time.