Due to the non-stop Israeli bombarding of the enclave during the 22 day Israeli offensive on Gaza Strip, Mohannad's family was used to seek refuge at night in the grandfather’s house, which is ceiled with reinforced concrete, and returned to their home in the daytime.

On Jan 16th, Mohannad's mother, Om Khalil, decided not to return to house in the daytime because rockets and shells were continuously striking the Strip. Yet, at noon and after Israel had declared a 4 hour truce, the atmosphere seemed quite safer so the mother decided to go back home.

At home, Om Khalil prayed Friday prayer with her dear son Mohannad, and then they sat reciting Qur'an. Instead of having sweet dreams of tomorrow and playing with other children like all other children in the world, Gazan children use to ask about death and which kind of horrible end they would have. It wasn’t strange that Mohannad asked his mother after praying about the grave and how it looks like; is it wide or narrow? Actually, to him the tomb might be the final shelter from the harsh non- stop Israeli attacks! 

Hours quickly passed. Suddenly, a sound of an explosion was heard and the house was shaken violently when an Israeli tank launched a missile towards the pharmacy located near Mohannad's house. With terrified quick steps, the mother fled with her children to the grandfather’s house. Yet, another Israeli missile quicker than their steps was launched towards them to critically injure two of the children and deadly hit the third.

One of the missile fragments cut Mohannad's brother Khalil's body into two pieces curbing him for the rest of his life, another stayed in Abd Elhady's eye blinding him, and the deadly one was for Mohannad who violently threw himself in his mother's hug moaning from the pain for few minutes before his death.

His Dreams: 

Joy and fun are two synonyms to the childhood that Mohannad lived all over his eight years. He stuck to his innocence till his last breath. "He loved playing all the time even in the hours of war", his mother said. In the day of his death, he woke up from dawn to play. His voice raised with laughing not concerned with the bombings and constant.

Mohannad loved teaching and wished that years would pass quickly to finish his to work as a teacher in one of Gaza's schools. He made his younger sister sat in front of him to teach her the basics of reading and writing exactly as his teacher did.