Muneer Abu Hatab did not fall under a bomb, yet war claimed his life all the same. In Gaza, where hospitals have been turned into ruins and medicine is more rare than bread, Muneer’s wound became a death sentence. A simple injury to the leg, caused by Israeli shrapnel, spiralled into a fatal infection—untreated, unmanaged, and unstoppable under siege.

Denied access to proper care after Al-Shifa Hospital was decimated and overrun by Israeli forces, Muneer was left to suffer through surgeries without supplies, pain without relief, and a body wasting away without nourishment. His son Munther watched helplessly as infection ravaged his father, as volunteer nurses changed dressings at home and his condition worsened.

When Muneer was finally taken back to the remnants of Al-Shifa, it was already too late. Amidst blood-soaked chaos from fresh Israeli massacres, he whispered one final plea to be taken home. But before that could happen, he died—starved of care, surrounded by war, whispering his last prayers.

His death was silent. But it cries out the truth of Gaza’s collapse: a place where even the wounded are not spared, where siege and blockade are weapons as cruel as missiles.