Mohammed Halalo (45) sits neat and grave in a Brussels cafe behind the European institutions he has worked for as a contractor for years, a Palestinian keffiyeh precisely folded over his business attire and his wife Manar steadily supporting him at his side.
On his mobile phone he plays a video of a large extended family sitting down to a celebratory meal to break the Ramadan fast, naming them as the happy faces appear on the screen.
“My eldest brother, my niece, my nephew, nephew, nephew, my brother, my brother, my niece, my sister, my mom, my sister, sister-in-law ... that’s Sharifa, that’s Zaina, that’s my sister-in-law, that’s my niece, the baby, this is Alma,” he says.
“Everyone in this video has been killed.”
The Halalo family now lie under the ruins of Mohammed’s childhood home in northwest Gaza that neighbours say took a direct hit during a night of intense Israeli bombardment on November 5th.
The Halalos are among the 312 Gaza families of which more than 10 members have been killed, according to local health officials, a pattern of death that reflects how airstrikes have hit extended families as they sheltered together, making for losses that have torn through the fabric of Palestinian society.
The Israeli Defence Forces say civilian casualties are inevitable in its mission to eliminate Hamas because of the organisation’s use of civilian areas for military purposes. It says it has made efforts to reduce casualties by telling people to leave, issuing warnings and using precise targeting.
The IDF was contacted for comment.
Mohammed’s father had a comfortable upbringing in the port city of Jaffa, now part of Tel Aviv, where the family ran a small fleet of fishing boats. They fled to Gaza in fear of their lives during the 1948 violent mass displacement of Palestinians known as the Nakba.
At first, the Halalo family rented an apartment in a decent Gaza neighbourhood. But the money dwindled, and in time they moved into Al-Shati refugee camp, where they would qualify for meals from the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA.
Mohammed recalls walking flooded roads to school on winter days, fearful of harassment by the Israeli soldiers who occupied the Strip at the time. He was eight when his father died, and he developed a profound bond with his mother, who raised eight children while caring for her disabled mother-in-law and taking in sewing to keep the family together.
His eldest brother, a “brilliant intellectual”, could not pursue his education due to the need to provide for the family. But the younger Halalo siblings rose high. One sister got a Masters in accountancy and became the manager of a department of the Palestinian Authority’s ministry of finance. One brother was a social worker with UNRWA, and another the financial manager of an organisation for orphans.
Mohammed was the one who made it big abroad. After studying computer science in Gaza, he won a scholarship for an advanced degree in Belgium. He brought over his wife and children and became a successful IT consultant, contracted to work for the last decade on delivering projects for the European Commission, such as its login system.
Mohammed brought his children back to Gaza sometimes for the summer, where they spent long happy days getting to know their cousins and swimming in the sea.
They all stayed in touch over messaging apps. This September, Mohammed delighted his mother with photographs of the abundant grape harvest from his garden in Brussels. She replied with recipes for vinegar and jam. Mohammed’s dream was to bring her to Belgium for a month or two to enjoy the garden and to spend time with the grandchildren, but a request for a visitor’s visa was denied last year.
When Mohammed woke to the news that Hamas militants had launched a vast attack on Israeli border communities on October 7th, he immediately rang his sister.
“I was worrying about what would happen next, because this is something very big, very new. There will be something big in response,” he remembers thinking. He told her to get to the bank immediately and withdraw all the money he had sent, and then get their mother to a safe place.
Located on Gaza’s coast, Al-Shati had been insulated from previous Israeli ground invasions that crossed the land borders of the Strip.
“The camp has always been considered one of the most safe places,” Mohammed explains. “They say whatever happens, we are very far from being reached by the Israeli tanks.”
On October 13th, the Israeli army gave residents of northern Gaza 24 hours to evacuate south.
The Halalos tried moving to an apartment, but it was close to Al-Shifa hospital, and the sound of bombardment all around made them feel less safe than ever. They moved home again.
They heard horrifying stories of the conditions in schools, where families were massing in an attempt to find safety, sharing a handful of toilets between thousands, with water supplies scarce. Bombs seemed to be falling indiscriminately.
“My family were watching this, and they said: ‘we are in our house, we have some food left, we have some water left, why would we move if it is not safe anyway?’” Mohammed remembers.
As the weeks passed, communication became sporadic. A video from October shows the family cooking bread on a makeshift outdoor stove. Mohammed remembers a concerning call with his eldest sister, when he asked her what food supplies the family had left, and she claimed she didn’t know.
“Of course she knew, because for years it was her who used to prepare food for everyone. She knows what’s there, and what’s not there,” Mohammed remembers. “But she didn’t want to worry me more.”
On the night of November 5th, Mohammed saw news footage from Gaza that showed part of the Strip being bombarded.
“I could recognise that area. It was Al-Shati refugee camp, where my family had been living,” he recalls. “I started to panic. It was really an unprecedented, unprecedented bombardment, like it was really massively heavy. I tried to call my family, without any success.”
He couldn’t sleep. He anguished. He prayed.
In the morning he took his children to school, and after he dropped them off he began to receive messages from neighbours living beside the family home in Al-Shati.
“Some of them had already evacuated, but those who decided to stay, they said the house was a target for a massive attack,” he remembers. He stopped his car on the side of the road and began frantically calling everyone he could.
Men had managed to pull out six of the bodies from the rubble, he was told. They were brought to the hospital to be counted among the dead. The rest lay under the ruins, still.
He begged neighbours to persuade the civil defence to come and help excavate. But the area soon became too dangerous to access.
“There were 30 people. Names, ages, memories. I know everything about them,” Mohammed says. “I would like to bury them. Their bodies need to be respected, to be treated with dignity. They are still under the rubble. Nobody can reach them.”
Mohammed cannot bring himself to look at the photograph of his mother that is beside his bed. He feels too ashamed.
“She suffered a lot in her life. She raised us up by her own,” he says. “I wanted her to come over here to Belgium as a visitor, to spend a few months here in a clean country. To enjoy our life, with the children,” he remembers, his voice cracking.
“I wanted to do something good for her. Now I can’t even save her dead body from under the rubble.”
Mohammed wants the young people to be remembered. His nephew Mahmoud (20), who ranked in the top 10 students in Gaza in the equivalent of the Leaving Certificate and was studying cyber security, inspired by his uncle.
Raoon (24) had also followed her uncle in getting a computer science degree. “She was talented in Python programming,” Mohammed recalls, his voice strangled. She got married last year, and was expecting a baby.
His niece Mervat (23), was a pharmacist with big dreams for the future. His 21-year-old nephew, also named Mohammed, was a talented footballer who took part in an international soccer competition in Paris two years ago.
Mohammed is haunted by the fear that one of his family could have been saved from under the rubble, but died slowly instead. He is finding it hard to speak, and his wife Manar encourages him to take a sip of water. He wants to carry on.
“I think this is important. I think I have a duty to speak. Because those people are killed, and don’t have a voice any more,” he says.
The fate of Manar’s family remains a great source of worry.
On hearing what had befallen their in-laws, Manar’s family debated whether it would be better to die all together, or for some people to survive, and suffer the grief and loss. They decided to split into five groups, two in Gaza’s north, and three in the south.
Her elderly father walked miles on foot down the main highway of Gaza to pass an Israeli checkpoint to get south, fearful of being shot or detained and passing the bodies of those who had died on the way.
Manar frets about her sister, who is six months pregnant, has little food, and has not seen a doctor for months. Manar herself recently stopped eating, because she found out that her brother and his family have run out of food and his diabetic medicine, and are trapped in their home in northern Gaza.
“Tanks are everywhere in that area. And they are shooting everything that moves,” Mohammed explains. They managed to reach the brother the previous day by phone.
“There is terrible news. Last night, they didn’t have food for the children. His wife had to boil water, put in some herbs and some bread, and feed the children, saying that this is soup.”
It is difficult to be far away in Brussels and unable to help. Mohammed says he feels warm support from the community around him in the city. But there is disillusionment too.
“It is disappointing. I am someone who works for the European Commission. Seeing the position that the EU is taking, it is difficult to continue to believe in working for such an organisation,” he says.
He believed that the EU stood for human rights, for equality, and against racism and discrimination.
“I was proud working for that organisation. I felt I did something important for European citizens, for myself, for the future of my children,” he says.
Mohammed feels that during this war, EU leaders have seemed to value Israeli lives more than Palestinian lives.
“I have chosen to live in here Europe, and I want to raise my children in its values. Imagine if one of the children comes to ask me for help with an assignment they are doing for school, about human rights and equality,” Mohammed reflects.
“I will lie, of course. I will say: yes, of course human beings have equal rights. But I am not convinced any more. I have seen that this is not correct. But I will not tell them the truth. Because I want them to continue believing this, until it becomes true.”
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