Gaza – Wissal Daher
In a small tent in al-Mawasi, Khan Younis, 12-year-old Alaa Abu al-Eineen sits staring blankly, his hand running over the hollow part of his skull where an Israeli sniper’s bullet once lodged, later removed by doctors, leaving behind a permanent gap in his head.
Alaa recalls in vivid detail the day of displacement—23 Ramadan 2025—the day the bullet stole his childhood forever.
“We were preparing to flee Rafah once again after they violated the truce,” Alaa says. “They forced us out of our homes in Tel al-Sultan. We carried what we could and walked toward Gush Katif Street as ordered. Soldiers had set up checkpoints and sand barriers. Drones buzzed above us, tanks stood ahead of us. I was walking with my twin sister, my younger sister, my father, and his wife.”
But the gunfire did not spare them for long.
“They shot a young man in his twenties right beside me. He fell as a martyr, and we couldn’t help him. We kept our heads down, walking to survive. I followed every instruction they gave us, but a bullet struck my right eye and lodged in my head. I didn’t collapse immediately—I kept bleeding as I walked, afraid they would kill me if I stopped.”
In the chaos of fleeing civilians, Alaa’s father found a tuk-tuk transporting the wounded to a small prayer hall turned into a makeshift clinic. A nurse there did what little he could to stop the bleeding.
A stranger even abandoned his own belongings to offer Alaa a wheelchair so he could continue the journey with his family toward relative safety.
But the ordeal did not end with his injury. At one of the checkpoints, soldiers forced families to split—men to one side, women and children to another. Alaa’s father resisted, trying to stay with his son, but soldiers threatened to kill him if he didn’t send the boy away.
Under gunpoint and insults, Alaa’s stepmother took responsibility for him. “She put a scarf over my head to shield me from the sun, trying to ease my pain,” Alaa recalls. When they reached the halaba checkpoint, soldiers ordered her to remove the covering to check his identity.
When she complied, the soldiers demanded: “Who did this to him?” She answered: “You did. You pointed your rifles at my child and shot him.”
One soldier, speaking fluent Palestinian Arabic, shouted back: “Shut up! We didn’t do this. The terrorists you protect did. We will wipe you out—we’ll kill you all. No one will remain in Gaza.” He hurled vulgar insults at her. When she tried to argue that they were all civilians, he screamed again: “Get out of here, or I’ll arrest you and the boy.”
As they tried to cross, another soldier—this time struggling in Arabic—yelled at Alaa’s stepmother: “This is not your son. Leave him and go, or I’ll shoot you.” She refused, insisting: “He is my child. I will not abandon him. Either I leave with him, or you kill me here.” Her defiance forced the soldiers to let them pass.
Alaa eventually reached Gaza European Hospital, separated from his father and sisters, not knowing whether they had survived. Doctors rushed him into a complicated surgery, removing part of his skull to extract the bullet. He survived with his eyesight intact, but a piece of his head was gone forever.
Through tears, Alaa recalls: “The doctor told me they could replace the missing part with platinum. But I want my head back the way it was. I don’t want anything foreign inside it.”
Today, Alaa lives a painful life. He can no longer play with his peers outside the tent. He watches them from afar, fearful that even the slightest bump could threaten what remains of his fragile skull.
