After Israel killed her three sons, she found hope in a newborn. Then he was killed too
In a small room beside an open window, 15-month-old Zaid Nofal slept without a blanket, unable to escape Gaza's sweltering summer heat.
At 3am, an Israeli air strike hit his family's home in al-Bureij refugee camp, burying his small body beneath the rubble.
A few metres away, his 38-year-old Palestinian mother, Fatima Nofal, stood in shock.
Covered in blood and dust as neighbours screamed around her, she faced a tragedy she had endured before: Zaid was the fourth son she had lost to Israeli attacks after three of his brothers were killed in 2023.
Neighbours rushed to the family's home, which had already been partially destroyed, before it was rebuilt following the October 2025 ceasefire announcement.
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"I still haven't processed what happened. I remain in a state of profound shock," Nofal told Middle East Eye.
"All I remember is waking up just minutes before the strike. I moved to another spot because of the severe heat, leaving my little Zaid by the window so the breeze could help him sleep."
'Israel is intent on killing us'
- Fatima Nofal, Palestinian mother
Although wounded in the attack, Nofal refused to leave and called on neighbours to search for her son.
"The room was filled with debris, and they began lifting the rubble to find him," she said.
Zaid was eventually pulled from beneath the rubble, wrapped in a light blanket and taken to hospital.
Three sons killed in 2023
His death reopened the trauma of 13 October 2023, when an Israeli air strike killed three of Nofal's sons. Only she and her two daughters survived.
At the start of the war, Nofal and her family fled al-Bureij refugee camp, believing the al-Sawarha area in the coastal town of al-Zawaida would be safer.
"We realised the gravity of the situation and decided to flee because we thought it would be safer than staying near the border," she said.
"But we never imagined that the place we went to for safety would become where I'd witness the killing of my three sons and most of my husband's family."
That strike killed her eldest son, 16-year-old Amin, 11-year-old Hamza, and Ahmed, her newborn son who was just 22 days old.
Nofal and her two daughters were also wounded. Their shelter was destroyed, forcing them into repeated displacement.
A small miracle
Like almost all of Gaza's population, Nofal has endured months of displacement, loss and uncertainty since the war began in October 2023.
Ten months after losing her three sons, a moment of hope entered her life when she discovered she was pregnant. Her happiness grew when she learned she was expecting a boy.
Nofal gave birth to Zaid on 16 April 2025, amid the ongoing war on Gaza. She believed he had come to fill the void left by the children she had lost.
'His arrival brought immense joy to the whole family'
- Fatima Nofal
"Zaid's birth was the most significant event in our lives during the war," Nofal recalled.
"His arrival brought immense joy to the whole family; everyone celebrated him as a small miracle that came to light up our lives after long months and nights of pain and tears."
Relatives suggested naming him after one of his late brothers, but Nofal refused.
"I wanted him to have his own name and his own destiny," she said.
Over time, Zaid became the "joy of the home". His sisters grew especially attached to him.
"Whenever I took him to the clinic for vaccinations or check-ups, his sisters would wait for him on the stairs. They could not bear being away from him, even for a few hours."
Nofal spoke to MEE while recovering from burns to her feet. Her eldest daughter, Baraa, sustained minor injuries, while her youngest daughter, Lina, suffered head trauma.
"Lina is still in hospital. When I visited her, the first thing she asked about was Zaid. I could not bring myself to tell her the truth while she was still wounded. I told her he was fine and waiting for her," Nofal said.
"I don't know how I will tell her the truth when she is discharged."
Nofal said her grief is deepened by the childhood Zaid never had.
"On the day he was killed, he was restless in the afternoon and wanted to go outside. I told his sisters how much I wished I could take him out, but there are no places left for children to play."
"He spent his whole life indoors. Even his cousins had been killed in Israeli air strikes, so he had no one to play with."
Israel 'deliberately' targeting children
Despite a ceasefire agreed last year to pause the two-year genocidal war on Gaza, Israel has continued to bomb the strip on a near-daily basis.
Israeli strikes have killed at least 1,200 people since the ceasefire began nearly 10 months ago.
Overall, the Israeli army has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians since October 2023.
Children have not been spared from the mounting toll.
The United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) said in June that around 260 children had been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire began.
Unicef spokesperson James Elder described the situation as a "cruel and deadly illusion of a ceasefire", saying that, on average, one child was being killed every day.
After witnessing the deaths of her own children, Nofal believes Palestinian civilians, particularly women and children, have been deliberately targeted by Israel.
"Since the war began, the vast majority of the casualties we've seen are women and children," she said. "Israel is intent on killing us, and it needs no justification to do so."
On the same day Zaid was killed in al-Bureij refugee camp, nine-year-old Ratil al-Abadla was also killed in an Israeli strike on her uncle's tent in al-Mawasi.
Al-Abadla had been visiting her uncle with her mother and siblings two days earlier, in an attempt to give her a brief escape from the realities of war.
A video of her father, Abdullah al-Abadla, holding her body and asking what his child had done to deserve such a fate spread widely online.
For families across Gaza, the question has become familiar.
The UN's independent commission of inquiry has said it found evidence that Israeli forces have deliberately targeted Palestinian children, describing such actions as part of conduct that contributed to its finding that Israel has committed genocidal acts.
For Nofal, however, no report or statistic can bring back Zaid or the three sons she lost before him.
As she sits beside her injured daughter in hospital, she faces a new struggle: finding a place to live and telling her child that her beloved little brother will not return.
"The fire is burning in my chest, and I do not know who will extinguish it," she said.
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