Maha is the biological aunt of Hamza’s father, Omar al-Rubaie. She and her younger sister, Huriya, raised Omar from the age of 15, along with his two brothers, after their father was killed in the 2008 Gaza war and their mother remarried.
Maha explains, looking at the baby sadly, “I raised my father, who was an orphan when he was young, and now I am raising my son, who is also an orphan.”
Hamza’s entire immediate family was killed in Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza that lasted more than two years.
On March 18, 2024, Maha was preparing food with Hamza’s mother Diana to break their Ramadan fast when an Israeli bomb hit their five-story home in Gaza City.
“Black dust, debris and debris filled the air,” Maha said.
She, Diana and Omar ran upstairs to where the couple’s three children were playing with their cousins.
“They were buried under the rubble, there was no sound or movement,” she recalls bitterly.
In the strike, Diana and Omar lost their children, eight-year-old Dima, six-year-old Anas and three-year-old Mohammed, as well as Omar’s older brother and his wife.
“Hamza’s mother was completely shattered,” Maha said.
After the children were killed, Diana fell into a deep depression, and Omar was so sad that he was unable to eat. A few months later, they tried to get pregnant again. The day Diana’s pregnancy was confirmed, “Omar and Diana cried hysterically, torn between bitter sorrow for their murdered child and happiness for their unborn child,” Maha recalls.
Even amidst starvation in Israel, the couple anticipated the birth of their baby and bought clothes whenever they could. They talked about having more children.
“They didn’t know they were going to be killed, and they didn’t know they would never see their child.” Maha’s eyes were filled with tears.
On September 4, 2025, Diana was nine months pregnant when her and Omar’s tent next to the school where Maha and the rest of her family lived was bombed. Diana’s mother died, and the dying couple were rushed to the hospital. Diana’s sister pleaded with doctors to save her baby, and an emergency caesarean section was performed in a hospital hallway shortly after Diana’s death.
“Imagine that his birth date is the same as the death date of his parents, his most loved ones.” Maha said with a cracked voice. “We received both birth and death certificates at the same time.”
The newborn was transferred to another hospital due to breathing difficulties immediately after birth and is receiving neonatal intensive care.
Maha saw the baby in an incubator for the first time as doctors fitted him with a breathing tube.
“After five days, his face improved and we named him Hamza,” Maha said, explaining that Omar chose Hamza, a name he loved, because he wanted a name different from the names of his dead children.
Maha remembers the first time she held him.
“(His) face was beautiful and radiant. … Looking at him relieved some of the sorrow and sadness in our hearts amidst all the misery that surrounded us.”
