After Israel killed her three sons, she found hope in a newborn. Then he was killed too

In a small room beside an open window, 15-month-old Zaid Nofal slept without a blanket, unable to escape Gaza's sweltering summer heat.

At 3am, an Israeli air strike hit his family's home in al-Bureij refugee camp, burying his small body beneath the rubble.

A few metres away, his 38-year-old Palestinian mother, Fatima Nofal, stood in shock.

Covered in blood and dust as neighbours screamed around her, she faced a tragedy she had endured before: Zaid was the fourth son she had lost to Israeli attacks after three of his brothers were killed in 2023.

Neighbours rushed to the family's home, which had already been partially destroyed, before it was rebuilt following the October 2025 ceasefire announcement.

"I still haven't processed what happened. I remain in a state of profound shock," Nofal told Middle East Eye.

"All I remember is waking up just minutes before the strike. I moved to another spot because of the severe heat, leaving my little Zaid by the window so the breeze could help him sleep."

Although wounded in the attack, Nofal refused to leave and called on neighbours to search for her son.

"The room was filled with debris, and they began lifting the rubble to find him," she said.

Zaid was eventually pulled from beneath the rubble, wrapped in a light blanket and taken to hospital.

His death reopened the trauma of 13 October 2023, when an Israeli air strike killed three of Nofal's sons. Only she and her two daughters survived.

At the start of the war, Nofal and her family fled al-Bureij refugee camp, believing the al-Sawarha area in the coastal town of al-Zawaida would be safer.

"We realised the gravity of the situation and decided to flee because we thought it would be safer than staying near the border," she said.

"But we never imagined that the place we went to for safety would become where I'd witness the killing of my three sons and most of my husband's family."

That strike killed her eldest son, 16-year-old Amin, 11-year-old Hamza, and Ahmed, her newborn son who was just 22 days old.

Nofal and her two daughters were also wounded. Their shelter was destroyed, forcing them into repeated displacement.

Like almost all of Gaza's population, Nofal has endured months of displacement, loss and uncertainty since the war began in October 2023.

Ten months after losing her three sons, a moment of hope entered her life when she discovered she was pregnant. Her happiness grew when she learned she was expecting a boy.

Nofal gave birth to Zaid on 16 April 2025, amid the ongoing war on Gaza. She believed he had come to fill the void left by the children she had lost.

"Zaid's birth was the most significant event in our lives during the war," Nofal recalled.