Twelve-year-old Ahmed Zidan’s adolescence has been defined by genocide and starvation. Israeli forces had already bombed his family’s home in Gaza, killed his older brother, and displaced his family a second time when, one month ago, they shot Ahmed’s mother while she was seeking sustenance for her seven living children.
“Israel killed my mother,” Ahmed told The Intercept. “We were waiting at the U.S. aid distribution point in Rafah.”
Ahmed’s mother was one of the more than 400 Palestinian people who have been gunned down by Israeli forces in a particularly brutal new phase of the country’s U.S.-backed genocide in Gaza. After the Israeli military, powered by U.S. bombs, destroyed Gaza’s food supplies and choked daily life to a halt, the government cut off the flow of crucial aid to the people it was starving. The move has forced hungry Palestinians to a limited set of Israeli and U.S.-run aid distribution points. These places have become the sites of dozens of daily murders.
“For six days before my mother was killed on June 3, she, my sister Mirvat, and I would walk to the U.S. aid distribution point in Rafah every evening, leaving our tent at 7:00 p.m. and waiting until dawn for food,” Ahmed told The Intercept. “The Israeli army surrounded us with drones, F-16s, tanks, and snipers.”
“I will never forget the moment I saw my mother shot by Israeli bullets, right in front of me.”
The family made the 2-kilometer journey nightly on empty stomachs. They were “terrified,” Ahmed said, “by the constant shelling and gunfire. We saw martyrs fall while waiting for food. Hundreds were wounded. We were all civilians — there were no fighters with us.”
Ahmed’s older sister Mirvat, 20, told The Intercept that the daily march was just one of many grueling journeys the family was forced to make.
“The Israeli army bombed our home in Khan Yunis,” she said, “wiping away every memory we had in that warm, familiar place.”
Israeli forces killed her 23-year-old brother, Nabil, in January of last year, Mirvat said, “during our first grueling displacement journey to Rafah.”
“Nabil was the backbone of our family — our only provider,” she added. “He was studying law and working at a company. He didn’t earn much, but at least he could bring us food. He had dreams of becoming a successful lawyer one day, but Israel killed him — along with his dreams.”
Nabil’s death devastated the family, Mirvat said. “But when Israel killed my mom, it shattered our family. I will never forget the moment I saw my mother shot by Israeli bullets, right in front of me.”
