Gaza Herald_ In Gaza, where displacement camps have become permanent shelters and safety is no longer guaranteed, even sleep has turned dangerous. Families living in tents endure nights filled with fear, as gunfire and explosions regularly cut through the darkness. It was during one of these nights that a four-year-old boy sought protection in the only place he believed was safe, his father’s arms.
Fadi sought refuge in his father’s arms during a night of random gunfire. One bullet found him, and ended his childhood.
“Hide me, Dad,” were the last words four-and-a-half-year-old Fadi spoke as he clung to his father during a night of Israeli gunfire. Inside their fragile tent, the child pressed himself into his father’s chest, seeking safety from the bullets tearing through the darkness. Eventually, he fell asleep, wrapped in the warmth of his father’s heart.
But the random gunfire from Israeli forces, its echoes ripping through tents made of fabric and fear, caught the father by surprise. A single bullet pierced the child’s head, exploding inside it.
Fadi Najib Salah, 4½ years old, was killed at dawn on Sunday by an explosive Israeli army bullet while he slept in his family’s tent in the area known as “Fish Fresh.”
“It was around two in the morning. The shooting was insane,” his father Najib told reporters. “We threw ourselves to the ground. I held him tight, and he fell asleep in my arms.”
He continued, “Fadi was trembling. When the gunfire started, he crawled into my chest and kept saying, ‘Hide me, hide me, Dad.’”
Moments of Loss
Najib described the unbearable moment that followed.
“Just as he fell asleep, there was a massive blast right by my head—it shook everything. I opened my eyes and saw the bullet had hit Fadi in the head. His face was shattered. Blood was everywhere.”
With anguish, he repeated, “The bullet was meant for me. I hid him in my arms, but it struck him instead.”
The father broke down as the reality set in. “My sweet, smart boy died in my arms.”
He asked through his grief, “Is this war ending or just beginning? What is happening to us? Our children are being taken from our arms in an instant.”
Najib spoke of the crushing guilt of being unable to protect his son. “Neither I nor the tent could protect Fadi.”
Despite everything, he says he plans to dismantle the tent and leave the place where he and his two surviving children witnessed the execution of their brother, hoping to find somewhere, anywhere, that might keep the rest of them alive.
In less than 48 hours, Israeli forces have killed four children in Gaza.
Seventeen displaced civilians were also wounded by Israeli gunfire in the Mawasi areas of Rafah and Khan Younis, zones that were supposed to be “safe.”
Gaza, they say, is not living through war anymore, but through what comes after it.
