Imad was killed in search of food for his kids. How much grief must Gaza families bear?
Tragedy is a relentless visitor in Gaza. Murder is no longer a surprise, but an expectation, even a norm - a vicious certainty in the beat of life under genocide.
But even in its normalisation, the loss of a loved one cuts deeply, leaving wounds that words struggle to convey.
The case of my aunt's neighbour, Imad Kaskin, killed in the ruins of a life displaced, is not an anomaly, but just one painful thread in Gaza’s tapestry of grief, where lives are erased amid global silence.
Until his death last month, 31-year-old Imad was a young man with a great sense of humour; one willing to give away what little he had, even though he was among the poorest of the poor. With his wife, Hadeel, and their two daughters, eight-year-old Retaj and six-year-old Dana, Imad lived with the quiet dignity of those who have mastered the art of endurance, what Palestinians call sumud.
In Gaza sumud takes on a million shapes and forms - shapes I doubt any other nation could imagine or has even known.
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Like the vast majority of Gaza’s population of more than two million people, Imad (a refugee from Hamama village, erased from all maps since 1948), was displaced during Israel’s current war. Fleeing al-Shati refugee camp, he headed south to al-Mawasi, in the Khan Younis area, hoping to stay alive in a land where survival is both a battle and an act of resistance.
On the morning he was killed, Imad had ventured out to search for flour, a scarce commodity that has become a distant luxury for Palestinians. In Khan Younis, the price of a 25-kilogram bag of flour has soared to more than 875 shekels (around $240) - a price that Imad, like countless others, simply cannot afford.
Desperate conditions
Hearing news that aid trucks might be allowed into Gaza, Imad headed east to wait for their arrival near the border, hoping to be able to feed his family. Several weeks earlier, Israel had reduced the number of humanitarian aid trucks entering Gaza to just 30 a day, representing a mere six percent of prewar levels.
Philippe Lazzarini, who heads the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), noted on social media that this amount of aid “cannot meet the needs of over 2 million people, many of whom are starving, sick, and in desperate conditions”.
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Last Ramadan, with basic food items tightly rationed in Gaza, a person’s iftar meal comprised half an egg and half an onion. A family of six would receive just three eggs and three onions for their only meal of the day - all the more shocking when we consider the luxuries people consume over the Christmas holiday season.
Ten months later, the situation has worsened further. Families have gone from receiving three eggs to just one. Last month, Hamed Ashour, a young writer and neighbour from the Khan Younis camp, shared this grim reality on his Facebook page:
"We received three eggs as a meal for three displaced families staying with us in the house. Believe me, I am not writing this to complain, but we now face the challenge of distributing three eggs among 20 people. Who can turn this into a mathematical equation that leads us to a solution - one that is both practical and satisfying - so we can overcome hunger together?"
These desperate conditions are painfully familiar to members of my family. My sister-in-law in Khan Younis recently called her brother, an Unrwa teacher, to ask whether he could spare even 200 grams of flour. She hoped to mix it with ingredients usually reserved for animals, just to bake something - anything - for her children.
All night, they begged for a piece of bread. Desperate to comfort them, he told story after story until they finally drifted off to sleep
My cousin, ashamed that he could not help her, set off to Deir al-Balah to visit his other sister, who had been displaced there and was unwell. He hoped she might have some flour to spare.
There, he was met with a grim reality that he knew all too well: they, too, had nothing. In Deir al-Balah, a single bag of flour cost an even more staggering 1,000 shekels (around $275).
My cousin, a diabetic who hadn’t eaten bread in 15 days, stayed the night at his sister’s tent, because it’s too dangerous to move around at night. But he could not sleep - not because of his own gnawing hunger, but because of the cries of his sister’s children.
All night, they begged for a piece of bread. Desperate to comfort them, he told story after story until they finally drifted off to sleep. But he remained awake, haunted by their hunger and his own.
Strength masking sorrow
Unlike my cousin, Imad knew his own sister had no flour and that her children, like his, were starving. He thus headed east in search for flour.
While waiting for a bag of flour that might never have arrived, he was shot twice in the back by Israeli occupation forces - killed for the crime of trying to feed his children. His lifeless body was retrieved by a brave aid truck driver and brought to Nasser Hospital.
Imad was not the only victim of securing bread. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people have been killed and wounded while searching for food.
For Imad’s wife, Hadeel, and their two young daughters, the loss is immeasurable. His sister, Hiba, bears this grief with extraordinary strength. My uncle was tasked with delivering the news to the family, and he tried to break it gently, telling Hiba: “Imad was wounded.”
She immediately knew her brother was gone, screaming: “Imad is a martyr.” She ran to the hospital, where surrounded by her grieving family, she remained composed.
Hiba stroked her brother’s head, kissed his forehead, recited Quranic verses, and urged the women around her not to cry, but to pray. Her resilience amazed even her husband, who later confessed: “I never imagined that my wife would be this strong.”
But strength is often a mask for sorrow. In the quiet of the night, when the world around Hiba had fallen asleep, her tears finally broke through. Her sobs woke her husband and children, who tried to comfort her. She smiled through the pain, telling them she was fine, and urged them to sleep.
The world must act
Two days after Imad’s murder, his fisherman neighbour set out to provide for his children, heading south to the shores of Mawasi. As he stood on the beach, having cast his net and waiting to pull it in, he, too, was killed in a drone strike.
His body lay on the beach, unreachable, for many hours; whenever someone tried to retrieve it, they were also fired upon.
When news reached his wife that afternoon, she ran to the area, defying the bullets and the peril, determined to rescue her husband’s body. She pulled him a few meters before other women rushed to help. As Ghassan’s body was finally retrieved, another piercing scream shattered the air of al-Mawasi.
The children of Mawasi watched as yet another father was taken from them; one among thousands killed while simply trying to feed their families.
Last year, during the Flour Massacre at Gaza City’s Nabulsi Roundabout, at least 112 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces as they sought to secure flour to sustain their loved ones.
All of these stories demand that we remember and bear witness to the suffering endured by an entire nation. The world might choose to look away, its attention fleeting and empathy selective - but Gaza’s endless pain persists. So too does its resilience, an enduring survival impulse rooted in sumud.
But the resilience of the people of Gaza is no substitute for real and meaningful support from the international community. As aid levels drop to record lows in a punishing environment, the time to act has never been so urgent.
Global civil society must unite, demand the end of Israel’s arms supplies and hold war criminals Netanyahu, Galant and their accomplices accountable to justice.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
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