Palestinian influencer in Gaza mourns family’s death in war between Israel and Hamas: NPR

This story contains descriptions of graphic violence.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip – We could call him Mr. Gaza Congeniality.

Social media influencer Ibrahim Hassouna, 30, who goes by Kazanova, spent years building your Instagram audience of 440,000 followers posting feel-good videos about his life in the Gaza Strip. Some would introduce his mother.

“I tend to spread positive energy,” says Hassouna. “But when the war started, there was no positive energy.”

His darkest hour came on February 12.

The Israeli army unleashed intense shelling to provide cover for commandos during a successful hostage rescue mission. At least 74 Palestinians were killed in that bombing campaign, according to Gaza health officials.

Among them were Hassouna’s mother, father, brother, sister-in-law and young nieces and nephews. They were murdered while they were sleeping in the house where they were taking refuge. It was the only night that Hassouna stayed over at a friend’s house.

“Now I’m alone,” he says. “Why should I live my life without a family?”

Encouraging your family and followers

In Gaza, young social media activists have attracted huge audiences around the world, posting images of what it is like to live under war.

Before the war, Hassouna worked as a restaurant and business promoter, emceeing their events and posting Instagram videos of daily life in Gaza.

Their videos were all smiles and laughter.

a video that he published shows him on a walk through Gaza City, in the passenger seat of a spacious car, with the sunroof open, holding a bouquet of flowers and playing a song.

The next video He posted a selfie on the couch at home: “I clean the bathroom and wash the dishes,” he begins.

“Liar,” says his mother, Suzan, in the background. He laughs.

Those two videos were from October 6, 2023.

The next day, Hamas attacked Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli figures. Israel began bombing Gaza, killing more than 29,000 Palestinians to date, according to Gaza health officials.

Hassouna and her family fled their home in Gaza City, then fled again and again, as Israeli warplanes dropped leaflets instructing Palestinians to evacuate further and further south for their own safety.

He couldn’t resist posting images of Israeli bombing sites, but his mother wanted him to stay away from danger. He tried to encourage his family and his followers on Instagram.

He published a video of himself making a falafel sandwich for a group of children sitting in a circle on the floor, including his little nieces, twins Suzan and Sedra, whom he adored.

“There were no toys to play with,” he says. “I played with them using a pot lid, an empty jar.”

in another videoHe puts his arm around his mother as he takes her for a walk to the market.

“We’re here for a change of scenery,” he says to the camera. They buy two cauliflowers and smile as they hitchhike in a horse-drawn cart back to the house where they are sheltering.

But that was just the Instagram version of the day.

Off camera, Hassouna says, it was difficult to enjoy the cauliflower meal. The price of two cauliflowers in wartime was as much as a whole meal used to cost. His mother was deflated.

“That day,” Hassouna says, “she said, ‘I won’t go to the market again.'”

The hostage rescue mission

On February 11, his mother texted him: “Come eat chicken.” She had managed to buy four of them.

“A significant achievement,” says Hassouna, in an overcrowded city where more than a million displaced Palestinians were clamoring for the same limited supplies.

He had decided to sleep at a friend’s house that night. So she promised to wait until the next day before preparing the family’s first chicken meal since the war began.

“He wanted to sit down and get the family together and for us to be happy,” he says.

At 1:49 a.m. on February 12, Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said in a televised statementIsraeli commandos stormed an apartment in Rafah and safely rescued two hostages (Fernando Simon Marman, 61, and Luis Har, 70), after 129 days in Hamas captivity.

At 1:50 a.m., the military carried out a massive round of airstrikes on Rafah as a distraction, to provide cover for forces as they escaped with hostages, military officials say.

When he heard the news of the attacks, Hassouna rushed back to the place where his family had taken refuge.

“The world turned upside down,” he says.

Picking up the shreds of his family

The details are graphic.

He checked body bags. A body was headless. He recognized his father’s finger.

He looked in the second bag and saw the side of his mother’s face. It was the side he saw sleeping near her every night where they took refuge from her.

Another bag had pieces of his brother.

He identified his little niece Sedra by an earring in one ear. He identified little Suzan by a small bag she always slept with.

He spent hours at the scene of the attack, collecting the remains of his family.

Destroyed lives

The operation was celebrated in Israel as a rare victory, and more than 100 hostages are believed to still be held in Gaza after more than four months of war.

Hassouna considers the Israeli perspective.

“You wanted to get two elderly prisoners back, that’s your right. Aren’t they human? They’re human,” says Hassouna. “A child is also a human being. Just as you want to recognize the rights of the human being whose life you want to save, you destroyed the lives of many people who had nothing to do with the entire war.”

On the day of the October 7 attack on Israel, he reposted a video on social media of Palestinian militants driving through an Israeli city, celebrating.

In retrospect, he criticizes both the Hamas attack and Israel’s response.

“There were many things that could have been solved more appropriately,” he says.

What his mother taught him

On a recent rainy day, Hassouna was sitting among his family’s graves in Rafah.

“I can’t even smell my mother’s smell, hear my father’s voice, control my brother, play with the little ones,” he says. “A nightmare you can wake up from, but not this.”

Recently, he filmed himself distributing drinking water to displaced children in Gaza, to honor his family’s memory.

“The darkness will be in my heart, not outside. I will continue to spread happiness, kindness and hope,” he says. “A person trusts in his inner strength, in the innate positive energy he has.”

It’s something he says he learned from his mother. The phrase “my mom” is tattooed in Arabic on her wrist.

While in the cemetery, a rainbow stretches across the sky.

Anas Baba reported from Rafah. Daniel Estrin reported from Tel Aviv. Jawad Rizkallah contributed to this story from Beirut.