Malak was like a sister to me.

We were nine years old when we met at the Hamama School for Girls in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood of Gaza City. It was 2019 and Malak’s family had just moved into an apartment three buildings away from mine. When she joined the school, I introduced myself, and from that day onwards, we would walk to and from school together every day.

Back then, Sheikh Radwan seemed like our entire world. We had beautiful buildings and shops where we’d buy sweets. Families knew each other. Children played together. We knew all our neighbours and called the adults among them aunts and uncles.

At first, I thought Malak blushed easily because she was new to our school. But as time passed, I understood this was part of who she was. Malak was shy and quiet, gentle and caring. Her name means “angel”. It suited her.

She cared about our classmates and whenever one of them was upset, Malak would comfort them. I often saw her helping other children with their homework.

I was closer to Malak than to the other girls at school because we both liked the same subjects: maths, physics and music. I have a passion for physics, while she excelled at maths. We both played the piano. I specialised in classical music, while she loved the traditional music of Palestine.

Advertisement

Sometimes, we played music out of tune. I remember once joking that she should stick to her dream of becoming a nurse rather than a professional musician. She laughed and agreed with me. We often made each other laugh.

But behind Malak’s smile, there was a sadness as if she were carrying a burden, a sorrow she kept to herself.

‘Why this sadness, Malak?’

One day in September 2023 we were sitting in the schoolyard, as we often did in breaks between classes, talking about our dreams for the future. We had just finished a maths test. The school day hadn’t ended, but I could see that Malak wanted to go home. She was holding back tears. “Why this sadness, Malak?” I asked her.

She looked first at the sky and then to me and replied. “My brother Khaled was born with a congenital heart defect. He’s just one year older than me, and he’s very sick.”

I had visited Malak’s home many times, and I knew that her brother was weak and often ill. But I didn’t know how serious his illness was.

When she told me that he might die, I put my hand on her shoulder. “Who knows, Malak?” I said. “Maybe we will leave this world before he does. Death does not care about age or illness.”

I never imagined that my fleeting words would soon become a brutal truth.

That day in the schoolyard, we spoke for hours. Malak talked about becoming a nurse and returning to Ramla, her ancestral home, from where her family had been displaced during the Nakba. She told me she wanted to care for sick people, especially children. I thought that she would make a perfect nurse because of her kind nature.

Advertisement

When the war began, we each sought safety with our families and lost contact. I was displaced with my family more than 12 times. We were forced to leave our home in Gaza City and fled to other places twice in the same city. Then to Khan Younis, Deir el-Balah, Bureij refugee camp, al-Mawasi, and now Rafah, from where I write these words.

Throughout these displacements, I tried to reach Malak, but I could never get through. Both her and her mother’s phones were out of service.

Our school was turned into a shelter for displaced people before it was destroyed by Israeli air raids on August 3, 2024. Even after this terrible news, I could not reach Malak.

Finding each other again

After more than a year of being unable to contact my friend, one morning in January 2025, while in our shelter in Rafah, I received a call from an unknown number. I was overjoyed when I heard Malak’s voice. She was happy and excited to speak to me, but she sounded exhausted.

I asked her how she and her family were and about her brother Khaled, remembering he needed medication. She told me they were living in a tent in the al-Mawasi area of Rafah, just a few kilometres from where my family was sheltering.

Malak was eager to talk. She shared how her family had been repeatedly displaced across Gaza. Our conversation also took us back to the good days in Sheikh Radwan – to our homes, our school and everything we used to do before the war.

Before ending the call, I promised to visit and bring Malak and her family to our shelter. I thought it would be safer for them to be in the same shelter as ours because our building is made of stone whereas Malak was living in a tent.

Advertisement

Two days later, on January 8, I made plans with my mother to visit Malak. I called her to confirm. Malak’s younger sister Farah answered, crying bitterly. “Malak is gone,” she sobbed. “She was martyred at dawn by a bullet while she was sleeping in our tent.”

I couldn’t hear. Or maybe I didn’t want to believe what Farah was saying. My heart ached beyond words. I hung up the phone, feeling choked by my tears. I turned to my mother. “Malak is gone.”

Together, in death

The next day, my mother and I went to visit Malak’s family to offer our condolences. We found their tent torn apart by bullet holes. But no one was there. Their neighbours, who were also in tents, told us that Khaled had passed away that morning. His illness had worsened without access to medicine, and grief over his sister’s death had broken his spirit. The family had gone to bury him.

I remembered my words from our schoolyard conversation. I never imagined Malak could die and that Khaled would follow her so soon after. They were buried side by side. Even in death, Khaled would not be parted from her.

Who fired that lethal bullet at Malak? Why did they kill her? Was she a threat to the soldiers while she slept? Did they fear her dreams of returning to Ramla?

Farewell, my dear friend. I will never forget you. I will plant an olive tree in your name, and I will bring those who remain from your family to be with us and care for them as you would have done.