Before the Gaza War, the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis was a regularly functioning hospital. Patients came to the hospital and their ailments were treated by medical staff. But in the last year, death has become ubiquitous there, and funeral prayers are now held almost daily in the hospital courtyard.
There is probably no one of the more than two million inhabitants of Gaza who has not been touched by death in some way. Those on the ground say they feel death has become a constant companion in their fight for survival, an omnipresent presence that has led some Palestinians to face their mortality by writing their wills.
These wills do not always take the conventional form of a legal document intended to divide property. Some write their wills in the form of poems, others write about their feelings about death, hopes and dreams, and give advice to those who survive.
Yousef al-Qidra, a poet and academic researcher, told CBC News freelance cameraman Mohamed El Saif that his will – a simple paragraph – was written in a moment of panic after a nearby airstrike that brought him face to face with the possibility of death.
After the explosion, as dust gathered around him, al-Qidra faced the uncertainty of the moment and worried whether he would live or die. This caused him to reach for his phone and frantically type a text message.
“After survival, the responsibility is to rebuild what was destroyed. Create a new life illuminated by the smiles of children, surrounded by the lights of love and mercy,” he wrote.
“In this vision I see myself shining like a child who longs to live forever.”
The phenomenon of war wills has become so common in Gaza that it caught the attention of Hani Al Telfah, a publisher currently in Turkey.
He and Reem Ghanayem, an editor based in northern Israel, collected the 18 last wills in a book published in Beirut under the Dar Al Maaref imprint. It is currently being translated into English and is scheduled to be published in 2026 by the British publishing house Akoya.
“This book is not just for reading, it is a book about history,” Al Telfah said. “It is important that the words in this book remain alive.”
The three authors of the book and the family of the person who died in December 2023 spoke with CBC freelance videographer Mohamed El Saif about the moments that led them to write their will, as well as their thoughts on death and how he dealt with it and survived the last year of the war.
A moment of fear – Yousef al-Qidra
Sitting in his tent in Khan Younis, al-Qidra recalls the moment of fear that inspired him to write his will. A building about 50 meters away from him had just been bombed and he claims that he and death had a moment “together.”
“Either he (death) takes you or you delay it,” he told CBC News. – That's all, nothing more.
After survival, the responsibility is to rebuild what was destroyed. To create a new life illuminated by the smiles of children, surrounded by the lights of love and mercy… In this vision I see myself shining like a child who longs to live forever.– Yousef al-Qidra's will
As dust billowed around him, seeping into his throat and lungs, al-Qidra claims he reached for his phone and began writing his will.
He says that although death was present in that moment, there was also a survival instinct. Al-Qidra describes himself as a person “attached to life.” This is evidenced by his constant attempts to survive many air raids and displacements, as well as his desire to write.
He says he feels some form of redemption for having avoided death for so long.
“As long as you breathe, as long as you exist on this earth, it is a certain form of victory,” al-Qidra said.
In his will, the 41-year-old wrote that the strip was filled with “the last moments that constantly surround us everywhere under the sky of Gaza.” In moments like these, he says, life's lessons become clear and one understands how short life's journey is.
Yousef al-Qidra, a poet and academic researcher in Gaza, says he wrote his will on his phone in a panic after a nearby airstrike brought him face to face with the possibility of death. In it, he asks for the donation of his organs if needed – all except his “tired, tired heart that yearns for rest.”
Al-Kidra's will spoke to his legacy, suggesting that his writings be made available to the public. He also asked that his memory be remembered with a prayer that would restore his “peace of mind.”
Finally, he asked for the donation of his organs if they were needed – all except his “tired, tired heart that yearns for rest.”
Mother and daughter – Ni'ma and Mayar Hassan
Ni'ma Hassan says writing the will months after the outbreak of the war in Gaza was a way to “prove our presence.”
The 44-year-old mother of seven said at the time that she thought the war could end quickly, so there was still hope in her words. But looking back on the last year, he says that even if the bombings stopped today, much of that hope had been destroyed, as had its reality in Gaza.
She says her perspective on death has changed – death has become a presence hovering over her. Other authors also said they began to think of death as an ominous face rather than a distant thought.
“You treat it as if it was a real person standing in front of you, face to face,” Hassan said. “You are looking death in the eye.”
Despite this, Hassan admits that he is afraid of death. A former resident of Rafah says she was displaced five times, trying to avoid death by moving between IDP centers, tents and sometimes the street.
“We are afraid of death and we run from it,” she said.
Hassan is currently staying near the Nasser Medical Complex, where he says “death has become my companion on my journey,” while family and friends mourn their loved ones in the hospital courtyard where he often walks.
Hassan says writing her will was a way to “face the death” that surrounds her every day. In it he talks about Gaza and the death that befell it.
“The gauze is sold in a box buried under the rubble,” she wrote, referring to the dowry boxes given to a bride on her wedding day. “The bride, still in white robes, has lost her voice.”
Hassan writes that she feels death staring at her, “as if it was waiting for me to open up so it could strike.”
I advise you to live the life we will no longer have.– Ni'ma Hassan's will
“Gaza has turned into a snake of death,” she writes, and eventually it will be her turn to face it.
In the first days of the war, parents wrote letters to their children names on their arms and legs to make their limbs easier to identify if hit from the air. Hassan notes this practice in her will and begs for death to spare her children's limbs.
She expresses frustration that she cannot find a safe place to protect her children from “imminent death.”
At the end, he leaves readers with some advice: “I advise you to live the life that we will no longer have.”
When her 12-year-old daughter Mayar became interested in writing, Hassan encouraged her to write her own will.
Mayar says this made her feel “strong” in the face of death and that over the past year she has become wiser and older than she actually was. However, in her will, her hopes and dreams are still those of a young girl.
So if our house gets bombed, I don't want anyone looking for me when my siblings and my mother die. I want to stay with them in life and death.– Mayar Hassan's will
“I tell (death) to take care of me, my parents and all my loved ones,” she said.
In her words, you can still feel Mayar's childhood fears – she is afraid of loneliness, both in life and after death.
“That's why if our house gets bombed, I don't want anyone looking for me when my siblings and my mother die,” she wrote. “I want to stay with them in life and death.”
In his will, Mayar also records children being forced to do so undergo amputation in Gaza.
If she suffers the same fate, she says she will search for her limb and keep it with her so that it will remain whole even after death, “and no part of me will remain in mourning.”
Viral Poet – Refaat Alareer
Palestinian poet and scholar Refaat Alareer died in December 2023 with her siblings and children after an Israeli airstrike that hit the house where they were hiding.
News of his death went viral, and friends, family and colleagues paid their respects by sharing his will online.
Alareer published the 20-line poem If I Must Die on his Instagram on October 13, 2023. In it, he encourages readers to use his death to “restore love” for Gaza.
His mother, Imm Hani, claims that Alareer never told her about what he wrote before his sudden death.
“I saw it on the Internet,” she said. “Even in Western countries, people talk about him and his will.”
When Imm Hani received a copy of her late son's poem, she held back tears as she read the lines about a child in Gaza whose father left without saying goodbye.
Refaat Alareer, a poet from the Gaza Strip, was killed along with members of his family in December 2023 as a result of an Israeli airstrike that hit the house where they were hiding. Two months earlier, Alareer posted a 20-line poem titled If I Must Die on his Instagram.
Through sobs, she recalled the day she learned he had died along with his siblings, nieces and nephews.
“Sometimes I forget about the martyrs… I hold the phone for a moment, just a few seconds,” she said. “I want to call him, but then I remember.”
Meanwhile, on the south side of the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, the cemetery has been expanded.
Before Oct. 7, Ahmed Abu Hata, the undertaker who cared for the dead here, says he buried just three or four people on his busiest day. Now he claims to bury nearly 15-20 people a day.
Tired, he sits on the edge of another grave he has prepared using pieces of metal and rubble from destroyed buildings as the death toll continues to rise.
