Haitham Ahmed Abdellatif Al Smeiry

Location Khan Younis

12-year-old Haitham Ahmed Abdellatif Al Smeiry from Khan Younis was a hardworking boy who was doing well in school. He hoped to continue with his studies and then get a job working at UNRWA.

On 23 July 2014, his house was hit by an Israeli shell. His father ran out of the house with Haitham and then went back in to get Haitham’s brother; a few moments later Haitham was hit by a missile from a drone. He died instantly, along with two neighbors. The survivors evacuated the area, but weren’t able to carry the bodies so they had to leave them there. The bodies weren’t retrieved for another ten days. Later, Haitham’s family realized that they did not have any photos of him; the photos had all been on the family’s mobile phones that had been lost in the rubble of their house during the attack. “Every father wishes that he would die instead of his son…but his memory will linger forever,” says his father.