My cousin Ziyad was too young to die. He was sleeping at home in Khan Younis refugee camp when the bombs fell just before midnight on Friday. After they heard the explosion, my cousins Mohammed and Moatsem ran to save him, they told me, but he had already died in his bed. He was 44.

Ziyad was a social worker for Unrwa, working with vulnerable families in Gaza’s refugee camps. Every summer when I visited Gaza from my home in Canada, he would buy my little son candies from Asa’ad’s shop – now gone with Asa’ad (who was killed in October 2023) – insisting that Gaza’s candies were the best in the world. Everyone in Khan Younis knew him for his calm presence, gentle spirit and warm smile. He was always ready to help – the words “no” or “I can’t” were never part of his vocabulary. The night before he was killed, he visited the wounded and sick, including my uncle, Kamal.

These attacks come mostly at night, when people steal what sleep they can from the endless explosions and cries for help. Since Israel cut off the electricity supply to Gaza, their light and noise pierces the intense darkness that falls after sundown. And it was the middle of the night when a missile struck the home of Ziyad’s family. The multistorey building had five apartments, all filled with people – three of Ziyad’s siblings and their families, and several displaced family members who had sought shelter there after losing their homes. Khan Younis camp is where my grandparents sought refuge in 1948 after the Nakba, and my family has lived there ever since. Ziyad seems to have been killed instantly. His wife, Samah, and four children –........

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