It was called Yaqeen Hammadwas eleven years old and a rare talent: to bring light into darkness. In one Gaza Strip disfigured by twenty months of bombing And three of total siege, had become the face of humanity. With videos published on Instagram in which he smiled, danced, invented games to make other children laugh, he told the war without rhetoric. And above all, without ever losing dignity.
As the newspaper La Repubblica reports, in the night between 23 and 24 May 2025, Yaqeen was killed by a Israeli air raid on Deir al-balah. The attack hit the Al-Baraka area, canceling his home and most of his family. “My champion. My little sister, my soul, was killed,” wrote brother Mohamed, who also survived by a miracle and humanitarian operator with the collective Ouna.
Together they distributed meals, clothes, toys. She, with the ONG vest too large for her minute body, packed sweets, improvised field kitchens with empty jars and wood fires. In one of his latest clips, he said: “I try to bring some joy among the children, so that they forget the war for a while”.
According to theUNICEFonly from 18 March 2025, beyond 950 children they were killed. Save the Children denounces that almost half of the population of the strip suffers hunger. THE’UNRWA estimates that at least 15,000 minors They have already died from the beginning of the conflict – a number that could exceed 20,000 including the missing.
Yaqeen’s social profiles, once witnesses of his resilience, have now become a collective mourning place. But his memory remains: it is the symbol of abroken childhood But never submissive.