“Bring Me Mummy from Heaven”: A Child’s Cry Echoes Gaza’s Collective Grief

Among the most heart-wrenching stories to emerge from the ongoing Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip is that of four-year-old Nariman Abdullah Al-Eisa, whose life has been shattered by a single airstrike. In one devastating moment, she lost her mother, her right leg and her right eye when an Israeli missile struck her family home in central Gaza. The area had received no prior warning and was not designated a combat zone.

On the night of 26 June, Nariman was at home with her mother near Al-Samer Junction when the missile hit, reducing the building to rubble. Her mother was killed instantly. Her brother Anas was wounded, and Nariman was pulled from the debris with critical injuries.

In the days that followed, she underwent multiple surgeries. Her left leg was amputated in two phases, and her right eye was permanently lost. Yet the deepest wound remains the absence of her mother. Her voice breaks hearts as she pleads again and again: “Bring me Mummy from Heaven.”

Her father, Abdullah Al-Eisa, recalls the moment Nariman’s grandmother tried to explain the loss. “Mummy went to God… she’s in Heaven.” But Nariman cannot understand why her mother’s embrace is gone.

Now Abdullah is working with humanitarian organisations including the Red Cross and Médecins Sans Frontières to secure urgent medical treatment abroad, hoping Nariman can receive prosthetics, psychological care and perhaps reclaim a fragment of the childhood that war has stolen.

Medical data in Gaza shows that one in every ten injuries during the current war has resulted in an amputation, and half of those cases are children. Medical teams are struggling not only with the physical toll but also with the severe psychological trauma, especially among children and women.

UNICEF has reported that more than 50,000 children in Gaza have been killed or injured since the war began. Meanwhile, over 14,000 people with critical injuries or illnesses remain on waiting lists for treatment abroad. The Israeli occupation has imposed a complete closure of Gaza’s border crossings since 2 March. The Rafah Crossing, Gaza’s main lifeline to the outside world, was completely destroyed and seized during the full occupation of Rafah in May 2024.

Nariman’s story is not an isolated tragedy. She is one of thousands of children who have lost limbs, loved ones and any sense of normal life. Her cry is Gaza’s cry, a voice of pain that speaks for a people still enduring, still hoping, and still resisting.

Source : Safa News