My name is Aliyah Abdel Majid al-Halaq. I am 33 years old, from the village of ar-Rihiya, south of Hebron, and the mother of five children. My eldest daughter, Mais, is 14. My youngest son, Elias, is five. Between them was my beloved nine-year-old son, Mohammad.

I always knew that life under occupation was built on violence, humiliation and fear. No Palestinian mother needs to be taught that. Still, I tried to protect my children from the full weight of that truth. I told myself that the poverty we lived in was the greatest hardship we had to endure; that patience would carry us through; that despite everything, our children could still grow up happy. On 16 October 2025, the day the Israeli army killed Mohammad, even that fragile belief was taken from me. I understood then that occupation does not only take land, freedom or dignity. It takes away something even more fundamental: a parent’s certainty that her child will come home. It turns every Palestinian mother into someone who lives in constant anticipation of loss.

Before Mohammad was killed, most of our life revolved around trying to protect our family and earn enough to feed our children. My husband, Bahjat, worked far from home at a supermarket, earning just a few dozen shekels a day. Only on weekends he returned, bringing whatever was left after paying for his food and accommodation. To support our family, I sold homemade sweets. This helped ease the hunger of our children. Despite these hardships, they were still too young to understand injustice or the cruelty of life.

Mohammad came home from school once overjoyed by the brand-new backpack he received from Unicef. His happiness filled our home. His siblings celebrated with him.........

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