No sooner had Mamdouh heard the explosion of a rocket near his house than he went out to discover what was going on. He found his uncle’s son Suleiman lying on earth, covered in his blood. He gripped him by the arms and whispered the testimony into his ear, then shut his eyes with his eyelids. Mamdouh carried Suleiman into the ambulance and turned to go home and break the news to his family, a reconnaissance craft chased him and 100 meters from the first shelling place, it shot a rocket at him and he soon joined his uncle’s son as a martyr.

Mamdouh never dared to anger his mother or sisters. If he sparred with them, he would immediately beg them to forgive him and forget about the whole matter. He would persistently ask his mother to forgive him and say, “Forgive me, Mum.” He would not go unless she forgave him. He felt comfortable only when he heard his mother say that she had forgiven him. His mother says, “He kept walking to and fro and insisted on having my forgiveness. I could do nothing but forgive him.”

Ahlam, Mamdouh’s little sister had not been able to sleep unless she saw his picture and had seen him in her dreams same as he had been alive before she woke up. He sometimes pampered her and played with her at other times. Sometimes he asked her to buy him something at the grocery and at other times she saw him radiating light, and clad in white.

As regards Nazih who was clinging to him as an oyster clinging to its shell, he misses him much. He always went to the market accompanied by him. Now, Nazih walks alone, looks round but finds nothing except Mamdouh’s apparition with every flicker of Nazih’s eye.