khaled nabhan. Screen Shot from YouTube
His death comes months after the poignant moment that moved the world to tears when he embraced the body of his granddaughter, who had been killed in an Israeli airstrike last year.
In November 2023, social media users shared a video showing Nabhan (Abu Diya) carrying the body of his three-year-old granddaughter, Reem, speaking to her with tender words such as 'Ruh al-Ruh' (soul of my soul), and embracing her in their final moments of farewell.
The video went viral on social media, and Nabhan's phrase 'Ruh al-Ruh' became a symbol of the immense human tragedy of the Palestinian people in Gaza amid the Israeli war.
Nabhan's tragedy did not end with the loss of his granddaughter Reem; he also lost his grandson Tarek, the son of his daughter, in the Israeli aggression on Gaza, intensifying the pain of his loss.
Back in November 2023, from the ruins of his home, Nabhan described to CNN the final evening he spent with his grandchildren, breaking down in tears as he recalled how they begged him to take them outside to play. He had refused, he said, due to the danger posed by Israeli airstrikes.
"They kept asking for fruit but there is no fruit because of the war," he said. Clutched in his hand was a tangerine that he'd given Reem as a treat but that she never had the chance to eat. "I could only find them these tangerines."
The family was asleep when the airstrike hit. Khaled said he woke up screaming for his children and grandchildren, struggling to walk through the dark and the wreckage to find them.
"I couldn't find anyone, they were buried underneath all this rubble," he said, standing on a bed in a room full of debris.
The Israeli genocidal war on Gaza has killed at least 45,028 Palestinians, the majority of whom are children and women, and injured 106,962 others since 7 October 2023. Thousands of victims are still under the rubble.
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