An Israeli strike in Gaza has killed an elderly Palestinian man known from a touching video that went viral last year of him grieving his 3-year-old granddaughter, also slain in an airstrike.
Khaled Nabhan was killed Monday during an Israeli attack on the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, according to reports. Footage from Gaza journalists shows Nabhan’s bloody, lifeless body on a hospital bed at Al-Awda Hospital while mourners, including his nephew, journalist Saed Nabhan, surround him.
Khaled Nabhan drew global attention after CNN reported in November 2023 on the Israeli military bombing his home and killing his grandchildren, 3-year-old Reem and 5-year-old Tariq. His daughter and the children’s mother, Maysa, was injured.
At the time, the video spread on social media of him gently cradling Reem’s body, nuzzling her with his beard, opening her eyes to kiss them and tearfully telling her in Arabic, “Rouh al rouh,” which means “You are the soul of my soul.”
“Our birthdays were the same; we celebrated our birthdays together,” Nabhan said at the time in a video from DOAM, an independent media outlet. “She used to play by kissing my beard, and I would kiss her face. But when I came back, she had passed away. I started calling to her, ‘Get up, my dear, get up!’ I thought she was sleeping, but she had died.”
A separate video showed Nabhan kneeling over his slain grandchildren while they were wrapped in shrouds in preparation for burial ― fixing Tariq’s hair “the way he liked it,” he told CNN at the time. Nabhan would keep pinned to him an earring belonging to Reem, so that she would be close to his heart.
Nabhan’s tenderness in the widespread footage helped to remind the world of Palestinians’ humanity and pain at an early stage of Israel’s destruction of Gaza, which many human rights experts have since described as genocidal.
After the deaths of his grandchildren, Nabhan continued to dedicate his time to helping the displaced children of Gaza, as well as bringing comfort to hospital patients and victims’ families. He created an Instagram account to document daily life under bombardment, amassing a million followers by the time of his death. Some videos show him also feeding Gaza’s stray cats and spending time with his mother.
“His embrace of his murdered granddaughter, Reem, gave us a painful & human image of the loss being inflicted on Palestinians early on,” journalist Sana Saeed posted on X. “Every loss of a Palestinian brings pain, but Khaled’s death hurts a little more today.”
Saed Nabhan said that their neighborhood was under tank shelling and that as he ran toward Al-Awda Hospital, he found his uncle among those killed. Eyewitnesses told him Khaled Nabhan “saw injured people and ran to help, but he was instantly killed by another tank shell,” according to CNN.
When asked about Nabhan’s death on Monday, U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller called the ever-rising civilian death toll in Gaza “an ongoing tragedy” but avoided holding Israel accountable for that death toll.
Palestinians and activists have posted their own tributes for Nabhan, some including art that honors the lives of both him and Reem. According to his nephew, Nabhan died while wearing, for the first time, a T-shirt designed for and given to him by a Palestinian American-owned brand. The T-shirt reads, “The soul of my soul.”
“This is forever how we will remember Khaled Nabhan and his grandchildren Reem and Tariq. Smiling and happy,” the brand, Wear the Peace, posted on X along with footage of Nabhan and Reem laughing together. “We are heartbroken but happy they’re far away from this cruel world.”
