Young Arij (three and half years old) slept on the 6th of January dreaming of the day when the war on Gaza will end in order to have the doll that her father promised. 

In the next morning and before the sun could shine in Al Zeitoun Neighborhood in the east of Gaza Strip, the dream has gone with Arij when an Israeli F-16 warplane fired a missile at their four-floor house, killing 23 persons, most of which women and children. That was recorded as the worst massacre in the history of the Israeli war on Gaza. 

Arij and all her siblings, even the fetus in the belly of her mother, were killed mercilessly. Arij was the third of her siblings, but she was the most beautiful of them all. She was of green eyes, yellow hair, and with a sense of humor. Her father Abu Yusuf says: "I loved her so much. She was very smart, polite, and helpful to all the people as she could."

One day her father was invited to the house of his sister Um Jihad. He saw a doll and threw it from the window then he remembered how much did Arij love dolls and he remembered the promise he gave her to buy her a doll as soon as the war is over. He says: "I remember once I lost my socks and I found out that Arij made dolls out of them. One day before her martyrdom when we were in the house of her aunt, she found a doll and put it in my bag. As I saw her, I asked her to return it back because it was not ours. She said: O dear father I want it.

Her uncle's wife remembers how young Arij used to come to their house to play with the children. She says: "She was only a young girl that does not know anything of the world but playing. Her mother tried to prepare her for the kindergarten stage in order to be so special like her sister Qamar. She was martyred with them, Allah is Sufficient for us, and how fine a trustee He is! They killed them all."