‘My leg went to heaven before me’: Israeli war extinguishes Gaza childhoods
The Halawa family in a makeshift tent in the north of the Gaza Strip, Omar with only one leg in front
Ola Al-Asi reports in Al Jazeera on 14 January 2026:
Omar Halawa got up from his chair, like any 13-year-old child would. But he had forgotten a devastating detail about himself: he only had one leg. “He fell off the chair,” his mother Yasmin Halawa told Al Jazeera. “It is very sad for us all, seeing him like that.”
Omar lost his right leg three months ago. On October 1, 2025, as Israel intensified its ground invasion of Gaza amid ceasefire talks with Hamas, Omar was on the street with his 11-year-old sister Layan, cousin Moath Halawa, 13, and friend Mohammed Al Siksik, also 13, to get water from a tanker that had come near their camp in north Gaza’s Jabalia area.
“It was impossible to pay 6000 shekels for a vehicle to get us to the south, so we had decided to stay in the north,” recalled Yasmin, adding that the family had been displaced more than 15 times during the Israeli genocidal war that began in October 2023.
“The drinking water supply became very rare in the area, so the children of the camp decided to get up just after dawn to be able to get in line for a gallon of water. Moments later, the shelling started and we felt afraid for our children, Layan and Omar,” she said. As she reeled from doubts over sending the children to get water, they heard someone shouting that Omar had been hit by the shelling.
“The first thing he asked when he woke up after surgery was about his friend and cousin who were in line with him for water,” said Yasmin. “They were both killed.” The family buried Omar’s amputated leg near their tent. He visits the grave every day. “My leg went to heaven before me,” he says.
‘Worst place in the world for children’
Omar had been grappling with deaths and destruction as soon as the war started. In November 2023, as Israel bombed northern Gaza, Layan was injured by shattered glass of the windows all around their house.
“After a horrific night, we left the house raising a white piece of cloth so that the Israeli soldiers don’t shoot at us, holding Hatem between my arms and walking with Omar and Layan by my side. On the way out, they saw the beheaded body of their eight-year-old cousin along with other martyrs. They froze in horror and started screaming and crying,” said Yasmin. Hatem is four. “My children have been emotionally disturbed after that experience. Layan struggled with bedwetting and Omar is afraid all the time, even from the sound of a chair hitting the floor.”
Omar and Layal are among tens of thousands of children in Gaza bearing the scars of a brutal genocide that has killed more than 71,000 Palestinians, 20,000 of them children.