[CW brief clip of his dead granddaughter, Reem, in his arms, looking almost as if she were sleeping, but with a spot of blood on her face... vocals and a musical instrument towards the end in the background.]
ID: A digital illustration depicting Palestinian-Chilean singer, Elyanna, performing her song, “Olive Branch.” A ray of blue light shines behind her, subtly projecting images of various Palestinian heroes. These people include photojournalist Motaz Azaiza, journalist Bisan Owda, and grandfather Khaled Nabhan with his deceased granddaughter Reem. There are also white kites flying in the background, olive branches, the Palestinian flag, and Palestinian sunbirds. Additionally, there is a caption of a lyric from the song that reads, “In the land of peace, peace is dead,” written in Arabic.
Attempting to open her unresponsive eyes for a farewell kiss, Khaled Nabhan lovingly rubs his beard against his three-year-old granddaughter's lifeless head, tenderly cleans her blood-stained face, and embraces her repeatedly before bidding a heartbreaking final goodbye.
In describing the innocence of his slain granddaughter, Reem, Nabhan poignantly refers to her as his "ruh-el-ruh," translating to "the soul of the soul." As he reflects on the profound bond he shared with Reem, a bittersweet smile illuminates Nabhan's face.
Tragedy struck when an Israeli airstrike, targeting the Al Nuseirat refugee camp in southern Gaza, brought down their home, claiming the lives of three-year-old Reem and her five-year-old brother Tareq. The family, sound asleep when the house was bombed last week just before the temporary truce, faced the devastating aftermath.
Waking amidst chaos, Nabhan searched for his children and grandchildren, thwarted by the absence of electricity that hindered locating them in the wreckage. Describing the scene of destruction, he points to the debris of their once-standing home.
Reem's mother, Maysa, suffered severe injuries in the attack and is currently in the process of recuperation. Tragically, the helpless mother, buried under the heavy rubble, couldn't rescue her little girl who cried out for help.
With Reem's father working outside Palestine, the family resided with her grandfather Nabhan, who shares a poignant statement about the inseparable nature of their relationship. "We were inseparable, I loved her more than my soul," Nabhan expresses, capturing the profound depth of their connection.
In a poignant video shared on social media, the grief-stricken grandfather is captured tenderly fixing Tareq's hair and capturing images of the lifeless brother and sister lying on the ground, shrouded in white, prepared for burial. Expressing his sorrow, Nabhan laments, "I combed his hair like he would always ask me to, like the photo he would always show me. He loved his hair like that, now he's gone."
In another clip circulating on social media, Nabhan wears Reem's earring on his shirt as a poignant keepsake. Tearfully, he explains, "Reem and her brother Tareq are the essence of my soul. I was cleaning their faces with a salt solution to get rid of the dust, and I found the earring." Holding the earring as a symbol, he adds, "I want to take the earring and want to keep it as a souvenir from you."
Reflecting on the viral video, netizens expressed the enduring impact of the grandfather's emotional scenes, especially the heartbreaking moment of him kissing his granddaughter's lifeless body. Nabhan, visibly crestfallen, emphasizes the significance of the earring, saying, "She will stay with me; I will remember her through this earring. I want to remember her and keep her earring as a badge. She is gone, and may you rest in peace, Reem."
The grandfather had been planning to celebrate Reem's birthday, coincidentally sharing the same birth date on December 23. However, overwhelmed with grief, he now finds it impossible to celebrate his own birthday without her. Seeking solace in his faith, Nabhan turns to God, acknowledging, "We should only complain to God; only God knows our sadness and heartbreak. God Almighty is the one who will seek retribution." In a heartfelt prayer, he implores, "I pray to God Almighty with His highest attributes and perfect words that Reem’s blood (ruh-el-ruh) and the blood of Tareq, and all other martyrs fall as a curse upon Israel, America, and their allies."
Amidst the memories, Nabhan recalls Reem's favorite game of pulling his beard and their playful interactions. Describing the tender moments, he says, "I used to kiss her on her cheeks, on her nose, and she would giggle. I kissed her, but she wouldn’t wake up." The sentence is incomplete, but it conveys the profound loss and grief experienced by the grandfather.
"Khaled alone is stronger than the propaganda machine of Israel. Just him all by himself. There's no lie that the American media or Israel could ever tell that would be stronger than Khaled."
During his speech at the Oasis of Dialogue in Doha, Qatar, social justice activist Shaun King talked about Khaled Nabhan, a Palestinian grandfather who lost his three-year-old granddaughter Reem along with her five-year-old brother Tareq in an Israeli air strike that demolished their home in southern Gaza.
King stressed that the gentleness in Khaled's manners runs counter to the stereotypical portrayals of Arabs and Muslims in mainstream media.
What always stands out to me about Khaled Nabhan is his unfailing kindness. He's always visiting or helping hospital patients, collecting toys to give to children, etc.
I'm not a grandparent, but I am an aunt. If my niece was murdered, I think I would dissolve into a sobbing wreck. I don't know if I'd have the energy to get up and do what Khaled Nabhan does.
I absolutely hate CNN with a passion and will not forget the genocide inciting propaganda they were sharing a few weeks ago. This will be the last thing I share from them and I am only doing it for Khaled Nabhan
Ghosts of Departed Quantities
“Historically, one of the earliest recorded references to the mathematical impossibility of assigning a value to a/0 is contained in Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkeley's criticism of infinitesimal calculus in 1734 in The Analyst”
“And what are these Fluxions? The Velocities of evanescent Increments? And what are these same evanescent Increments? They are neither finite Quantities nor Quantities infinitely small, nor yet nothing. May we not call them the ghosts of departed quantities?”
- George Berkeley
As Israel fills the throat of civilization with dust
and the soil with the ocean’s salt
we try to measure that which is lost as a sum
or quantity, a real number. Impossible
as Mahāvīra found, bare feet cool on the red clay
on the knees of the Chamundi Hills
searching for a resolution to Brahmagupta’s error:
that a number remains unchanged when divided by 0.
Impossible, Berkeley cried eight centuries later
to divide something into nothing.
How to measure four year old Ahmed Shabat’s legs
amputated after an Israeli bomb
burst Nuseirat refugee camp, a world wound,
his home in Beit Hanoun destroyed with his parents
and fifteen family more?
“Where is my mother? Where is my father?” he asks
over and over, and how will we answer?
How to measure the infants
left to decay in the shell of the bombed hospital
as death pressed in like gravity? Christ in the hay
was not more beautiful than they.
How to measure Khaled Nabhan
kissing the eyes of his granddaughter Reem?
“She is the soul of my soul.”
How to measure the olive trees,
two millennia on fire?
How to measure Refaat Alareer,
poet of life, who wrote his death
before he was killed with his brother, his sister,
their four children?
“If I must die
let it bring hope
let it be a tale.”
Let it enter your heart!
Let it enter your heart, mathematician of the world house,
inheritor of the geometry of India, and Baghdad’s House of Wisdom.
Let it enter your heart, sons of Baldwin, that son of America, who knew
“Every bombed village is my hometown.”
Remember algebra itself, born from the Arabic الجبر: “a reunion of broken parts.”
Al-Khwarizmi in his wisdom wrote ilm al-jabr wa'l-muqābala,
‘the science of restoring what is missing
and equating like with like’.
“Think not of those who are slain in Allah's way as dead.
Nay, they live, finding their sustenance
in the presence of their Lord.
They rejoice in the bounty provided by Allah.
And with regard to those left behind, who have not yet joined them
in their bliss, the martyrs glory in the fact that on them is no fear,
nor have they cause to grieve.”
Let my life be a witness to the witness.
“She will stay with me,”
Khaled Nabhan says, Reem’s earring glittering
like a tear of gold on his brown palm.
“I will remember her through it.”
When mathematics fails, how will we measure?
Let it be undefined, but not forgotten.
Let your heart equal mine, let my blood
be that hot quantity which remembers yours.
Let my breath be your breath.
Let your life be that line
which, sacred function,
approaches infinity forever and ever, amen.