Mother of two killed in Gaza airstrike: 'They were not just statistics'

On January 7, 2024, Aya Shamaa woke up under rubble on the outskirts of Gaza City. Around her was darkness, dust, shattered concrete, and the screams of her six-year-old son Nasser, who was reaching through debris to touch his mother's trapped fingers.

When she was pulled from the wreckage, she discovered her youngest son, 51-day-old Ryan, had died after being trapped under rubble for over an hour. Ryan was born during a temporary ceasefire and had lived less than two months.

'His body was so small, I wrapped him in a piece of my clothing, afraid he would get cold,' Aya said.

The same day, her seven-year-old son Yaman died on the way to the hospital. Aya was initially told Yaman was only lightly injured. His body was handed to her just minutes after she had bid farewell to Ryan.

Aya called Yaman her 'little philosopher' because he spoke impeccable Arabic, spent hours watching documentaries about space, wildlife, oceans, and plants. Yaman loved books, memorized stories of the prophets, and had joined a Qur'an memorization center just before the war began. He was a deeply sensitive child who refused to eat meat because he loved animals and could not understand why they were harmed or killed.

After the house was partially destroyed, Yaman comforted his mother: 'Mom, don't be sad. After the war, I will build you a bigger and more beautiful house.'

'In Gaza, genocide is not just killing children en masse. It is erasing human potential, destroying bright futures. It is taking away a scientist who could cure a deadly disease, a writer who could pen a prize-winning book, an engineer who could invent something to help humanity, a child who could build a big, beautiful house for his mother,' Aya wrote.

What hurts her more than the death itself is the normalization of loss in Gaza. 'To the rest of the world, Ryan and Yaman are just two items added to the statistic of 21,000 Palestinian children massacred. Anonymous and faceless to the world, but to us, they were everything.'

Aya's surviving son, Nasser, has become an only child after losing both brothers. She still remembers Nasser pulling at Yaman's white shroud, crying and refusing to let them take his brother away. Since that day, Nasser spends hours staring at Yaman's photo on the phone, as if trying to understand how a child could vanish so suddenly.

On International Children's Day (June 1), Aya asked: 'Why do all these anniversaries, organizations, and laws exist when they do nothing to stop the massacres of children?'

'Perhaps because the world has grown used to seeing Palestinian children as numbers, not people. Perhaps because decades of dehumanization have finally borne fruit. But behind every number, there is a mother's eternal love. Behind every number, there is a mother who still remembers her child's voice, the foods they refused, the dreams they shared, and the small details life never gave them enough time to enjoy.'

Though a ceasefire has been established, children continue to be killed in Gaza almost daily. 'Ryan and Yaman are not numbers. They are my children, whom the world failed to protect,' Aya concluded.