My Friend Mahmoud: The Face of Childhood That Vanished in the War
A life lived beside me, a life erased in an instant, a memory I refuse to let the world reduce to a number
Foreword
This is the fourth installment from our young writer in Gaza, Abood Abed Alrhman. This story is the hardest one for him to share because it carries someone he loved like a brother. He wanted to write it from the start, but going back to those memories was more than he could handle.
Mahmoud was seventeen, on the cusp of turning eighteen, when Israel killed him in November 2023. Writing this piece came with a deep emotional cost for Abood, and every line reflects the weight of that loss. It is the most personal story he has shared.
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Mahmoud was not just a friend…
He was far more than that… he was my brother—the one my mother did not give birth to, yet who was born in my heart since childhood.
I grew up with him, side by side,
in the same streets that memorized our footsteps,
in the same school that witnessed our laughter,
in the same classroom that held our simple dreams.
We lived childhood the way it was meant to be lived…
running after a small ball,
believing the world did not go beyond the edges of the field.
And Mahmoud was always the best…
not only because he was the most skilled at football,
but because he had the purest heart and the most honest soul.
He wished good for everyone…
smiled without reason,
helped without expecting anything in return,
calm… peaceful…
and strong in a way that could not be measured by muscles, but by character.
Then the war came…
a war that did not come only to steal our homes…
but to take away peace, faces, and memories.
Mahmoud stayed in northern Gaza,
standing firm with his family,
facing fear in silence,
hiding his pain behind a few words.
As for me… I had reached the south,
to a school in Khan Younis,
carrying a restless anxiety,
waiting for his voice as a drowning man waits for a breath of air.
We stayed in constant contact,
I checked on him… and he checked on me,
as if we were trying to convince ourselves that everything was still okay.
One day, I called him and asked about our house…
he said in a tired voice:
“I don’t know… I’ll go and see if it was hit.”
That moment was heavy…
as if time had stopped,
as if my heart was trapped between prayer and fear.
Then his voice returned…
“Your house is safe… thank God… only the windows are shattered.”
I breathed in relief…
feeling as if life had returned a small piece of safety to me,
but I did not know…
that it would be the last time I would ever feel saved.
The next day…
I heard the news that tore apart what remained of me:
“A school in northern Gaza has been bombed…”
It was not just news…
it was a warning…
a heavy shadow creeping toward me.
Then I learned the truth…
that school…
was the shelter where Mahmoud and his family were staying.
In that moment…
there was no sound…
no air…
everything froze.
I grabbed my phone with trembling hands,
and called him…
once… twice… ten times…
No answer.
His phone was off.
That silence…
was not ordinary silence,
it was the silence of graves…
a silence that carried the end within it.
I clung to any hope…
any possibility… any miracle…
that he would survive… that someone would… that I would hear his voice again.
But the truth…
was harsher than anything the mind can bear.
Mahmoud… did not survive.
Neither did his family.
Mahmoud was gone…
and with him, his father and mother,
his brothers: Mustafa, Mohammad, Omar,
and little Sami…
They were gone all at once…
as if they had never been here,
as if their laughter had never filled the place,
as if life had never passed through there at all.
I couldn’t say goodbye…
I couldn’t see him one last time…
the road to the north was surrounded by death,
anyone who tried to return was targeted…
even farewell had become a crime.
And since that day…
every night, Mahmoud comes back…
not in body… but in memory.
He comes as a voice inside me,
as an image walking in the dark,
as a laugh that is born… then suddenly killed.
I see him running after the ball…
then falling…
I reach out my hand to him… and find nothing but emptiness.
And I cry.
I cry because the world has grown used to seeing them as numbers,
a number mentioned in the news,
or written in a report… then forgotten.
But they were never numbers.
They were human beings…
with names, with faces, with beating hearts,
with dreams waiting to be realized,
with days that deserved to be lived.
Mahmoud… was not a number.
He was a whole life…
extinguished in a single moment.
And since then…
war is no longer just something I hear about…
it has become Mahmoud’s face…
when he disappeared…
and never came back.
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Abood, I am so sorry. Words fail me. My heart breaks for you.
So crushingly sad 😔 😟