Ali Ezz Alden in photo circulating on social media

May again.

At the beginning of May, we Palestinians begin feeling tense, because so much bad in our history occurred this month.

I hate May. The world made us hate it.

For us, May has come to be “the month of war.” Indeed, the Nakba (when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were evicted from their homeland to make way for the creation of Israel) began during the month of May: the 15th of 1948. And many of us are still traumatized from the devastating Israeli assault in May 2021.

And 2023 is no different. At 2 a.m. on May 9, I heard an explosion. I didn’t really pay attention, since we are used to such sounds every day and night. I looked at my phone and was surprised to see the news.

A picture showed flaming Israeli rockets spread across the Gazan sky. “Israeli air strikes heavily bombed and assassinated a number of Palestinian resistance leaders in Gaza,” a post said.

This had become too routine in Gaza. One moment, alive. In the blink of an eye, dead, homeless, injured, or without a family.

“The party has started,” my sister said, in Gazan slang.

Jihad, 7 years old (or, in Gazan time, one war old) rushed to open the windows, a trick we Gazan residents have learned, to prevent the glass from shattering.

Now a photo of a boy named Ali Ezz Alden was circulating all over social media. Jihad asked why his best friend was leading the news…

In the now deadly silent living room, my family and I huddled together, gazing at Ali’s picture on TV. Tears rolled down our cheeks. Jihad’s mother, my aunt, rushed to shut off the news. The booming of the bombing grew closer.

Israel killed three entire families in this nightmare of a night. Only five hours prior, Jihad had been preparing himself for a school trip. He packed in his bag two each of all the snacks he and Ali loved.

How do we tell this young boy his friend is gone? How do we explain, when Ali was killed for no reason? How do we help a child understand that we, too, could face the same destiny as Ali?

“Ali is not coming for tomorrow’s trip; he’s gone with his beloved sister, Mayar, and his father, Tariq, on a special trip to live immortal in heaven,” Jihad’s mother said in a trembling voice.

Jihad responded sadly, “It won’t be as fun without him, but I’m going to tell him about everything tomorrow.”

Jihad is not a sociable child. He prefers to spend time with older people rather than children his age. Ali was his only friend. Whenever he arrived home from school, Jihad would always tell us how they — he and Ali — spent their school day. Jihad won’t understand this loss; he’s still waiting to see his buddy at school.

Then his killing was announced on the news: May 10, 2023. He wept in big heaves. “Who forgot to shut off the TV?” his mother shouted. “Mama, Ali is dead,” cried Jihad.

How to help him stop crying? How to make him stop thinking or feeling? In Gaza, you might go to sleep and never wake up. You can’t know what is going to happen after a second or a word. We are alive by chance!

As I write these words, they are bombing us. I hope this story finds its way to the world.