On Oct. 20, 2023, the WANN family lost Mahmoud Alnaouq. He was killed by an Israeli missile strike on his family’s home in the town of Deir Al Balah, in the central Gaza Strip. In addition to Mahmoud, 19 other family members were killed. Three more were gravely injured, one of whom died afterward due to a shortage of ICU beds in the hospital.

Mahmoud was the brother of WANN cofounder Ahmed Alnaouq.

May Mahmoud and the departed members of his family rest in peace.

Mahmoud was 25 years old. He was employed as an outreach officer at Pal-Think for Strategic Studies, which inspires rational public discussions and consensus for the well-being of the Palestinians. He was a talented writer who published five stories at our website between 2018 and 2020.

We are adding tributes to Mahmoud as they are able to come in, given the challenging communication circumstances.

Pam Bailey (WANN founder and mentor to Mahmoud)

When I first met Mahmoud, I could see that he had Ahmed’s sweetness and intellectual potential, but he wanted to find his own way to develop. And he sure did. He progressed from one NGO to another, finding his unique niche. I was thrilled to learn that he had finally fulfilled his desire to travel, just recently returning from Malaysia. What breaks my heart is that he didn’t live to follow his dream to Australia, where he just had been given a master’s scholarship. Mahmoud, you made us all proud.

Irene Doukas Behrman

Mahmoud was my first friend at my Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor job. His incredible warmth and sense of humor will never be forgotten. We had hoped to work together again one day, and his death is difficult to process. I am also holding his brother Ahmed in my thoughts, as he is the one that brought me into the Euro-Med Monitor fold after we met at a We Are Not Numbers meeting. Thank you Ahmed for giving me the opportunity to work remotely alongside Mahmoud, who was failed by the world and deserved so much more than he was given.

Maha Hussaini (WANN management team)

When he aimed for something, he made sure he achieved it. Over the past three years, Mahmoud did not lose hope despite multiple failed attempts to get a scholarship to pursue a master’s degree in human rights outside of Gaza. But what the news anchors who announced the killing of “19 Palestinians” did not celebrate was that Mahmoud had finally gotten a scholarship, and that he had jumped with joy like a child when he received the approval email, only a few weeks before his killing.

The 25-year-old young man with a heart as big as his dreams had also just finished preparing a crowdfunding campaign to provide relief support for displaced families whose homes were destroyed during Israel’s ongoing offensive. Under intense Israeli bombardment, and only two days before he was killed, he had finished writing the campaign message and had already begun contacting crowfunding platforms to run the campaign. For years, Mahmoud worked relentlessly to support others and improve himself, with big dreams and precise goals for his life, he planned for his future as if he did not live in Gaza, as if he would not be bombed inside his home for merely being a Palestinian.

Read Maha’s full commentary, To the loving memory of our colleague Mahmoud Naouq, published by Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.

Read a commentary by Aseel Mousa, Israel-Palestine war: Farewell Mahmoud, my kind, generous, joyous friend, published in Middle East Eye.