"I came to search for my son's remains after he was killed before the dawn prayer"

A father from the Gaza Strip recounted the devastating moment he went searching for his young son’s remains following an "Israeli" airstrike on his son’s school.

The father revealed that he was handed a bag containing 23kg of what were identified as his son’s remains. He was told, "This is your son, bury him." 

“As I carried the heavy bag, I remembered a day when I returned from the market with a heavy load. My son, in his innocent eagerness, offered to carry it for me,” the father recounted. “He proudly showed his strength to his mother and siblings, boasting that he had carried it all by himself for his father.”

“Now, you are leading me home again with this bag. But how can I be sure that the remains inside belong to you? The laughter that once filled our home, your skinny arms playfully wrestling with your siblings, your head resting on grandmother’s lap, and your tiny feet that used to search for water and aid—everything is now reduced to this single bag.”

The father shared the difficulty of explaining the situation to his wife: “When your mother asks, 'Do you know there’s no electricity, Abu Saleh? Where should we put all this? Should we give it to the neighbors?'—how can I tell her that what’s in the bag is not fit for charity and that these 23 kgs of remains represent our share of death this week?”