They were just two young hearts trying to steal a moment of peace beside the sea. Alaa and Naseem sat hand in hand at Gaza’s Al-Baqa rest stop, laughing, dreaming, promising each other a future beyond the rubble. Then the sky opened, and everything changed.

An Israeli airstrike struck without warning, killing 33 people that day. Among them was Naseem, a kind-hearted 24-year-old who had once told Alaa: “If we die, let it be together.” But war does not honour love. It separates what should never be parted.

Alaa, a final-year engineering student, was wounded but survived. Her wound was not just in the leg, it tore through the life she was building. Naseem wasn’t just her fiancé. He was her calm, her softness, her future. Their plans were simple: a small home, modest furniture, quiet joy. Now, silence has replaced laughter.

When she saw his face for the last time, she said it looked like the full moon. She whispered a prayer, not of farewell, but of faith, faith that love doesn’t end, even when war tries to erase it.

In Gaza, stories like theirs aren’t rare. They are the rhythm of a people who dare to love in a place where death often comes first.