Published On 4/7/2026
Two weeks ago, the war in Gaza came knocking on the door of the Palestinian Matar family again. This time it was not a missile or shell, but rather severe nerve pain similar to electric shocks, which suddenly reappeared in Souad Matar’s head, more than two and a half years after the injury she suffered during the war.
At that time, Souad was exposed to a horrific tragedy when Israeli occupation soldiers killed her husband, Doctor Muhammad Matar, in front of her, in an attack that ended with her losing three of her children, and seriously wounding her and her two remaining children.
Although her body and her two children gradually recovered from most of the injuries, the effects of those moments did not leave their lives. The pain did not stop at the borders of the wounds, but rather extended to a memory burdened with fear and pain, the details of which are still present today.
Death at the door
On December 21, 2023, life was going on normally inside the family home in the Al-Saftawi neighborhood, north of Gaza City.
Souad was kneading bread while distributing her five children. Malak (17 years old), Yahya (14 years old), Dima (11 years old), Ahmed (9 years old), and Fatima (5 years old), around the house, accompanied by their father, Doctor Muhammad Matar. The morning calm was interrupted by a sudden knock on the door.
The doctor went to open it, but returned moments later covered in his own blood, after an Israeli special force shot him from behind.
While he was reciting the two testimonies, the son, Yahya, told his mother that his father pushed him away to protect him from the bullets, before he fell to the ground injured.
Between the bombing and the farewell
The incident did not end with the shooting. Minutes later, the house began to be bombed with tank shells. The family gathered around the injured father, while the children’s screams rose as they begged their mother to take them out of the house, repeating that they would die.
Souad tried to calm them down, but the shells were falling one by one, and the rubble was collapsing on top of them. Before the doctor lost consciousness, he began to teach his wife his will.
Moments later, the bombing sealed the family’s fate; The doctor, Muhammad, and three of his children: Malak, Yahya, and Dima, were martyred, while Souad and the two children, Ahmed and Fatima, were seriously injured.
A miracle in the midst of destruction
The soldiers entered the house after the bombing, and found the mother unconscious amidst injuries, so they thought she had died and left her.
As for the two children, Ahmed and Fatima, they were transferred to Soroka Hospital in Beersheba, before they were later handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which transferred them to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central Gaza Strip.
Because of the separation of the north of the Strip from its centre, the two children remained away from their mother for three full months. As for Souad, she still does not know to this day how she survived.
The bereaved mother woke up a few days later in the hospital, only to hear later from relatives and witnesses that she was seen walking alone towards her old home, despite suffering burns to the face, shrapnel in the head, and fractures in the back and chest bones, before one of her husband’s relatives recognized her and took her to the hospital.
She says she does not remember anything from those hours, and considers her survival a divine miracle.
A missing body and a memory
The mother woke up to a reality even harsher than her injuries; She lost her husband and three of her children at once, and was not even able to say goodbye to them or participate in their burial.
What added to her tragedy was that the body of her son, Yahya (14 years old), was lost and was not found, but Souad believes that he was martyred after her relatives told her that a skull and spinal bones were found, close to the place, and are believed to belong to him.
Three months later, the mother was able to reach the center of the Strip, where she met her two surviving children for the first time since the incident.
Although more than two years have passed, the effects of that day have not left the life of the small family.
Perhaps what a mother wishes most today is to see her martyred children in a dream, and for them to visit her dreams for a short moment, and for her to be able to embrace them even one last time, after she was deprived of saying goodbye to them in reality.
While the family tries to recover physically and psychologically, what that day left behind remains fresh in the memory, like a wound that will not heal.
