"Muhammad was a butterfly."
Muhammad al-Hallaq was a 9 year old student, soccer player, bird enthusiast, brother, and son that was murdered by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) on October the 16th. He was out playing soccer with his friends when an IOF sniper shot him from 200 meters away.
His grandmother described him as a butterfly to demonstrate his insatiable energy through teary crystal eyes and the slight grin of a loving grandparent. She sat beside her daughter Alia, the 33 year-old mother of Mohammad, and her other grandchildren. Alia told us that other family members said she didn't have to keep telling the story, but she wants to do everything she can to make sure no other families have to go through this. Alia's mother and sister have been staying with Alia and her children since Muhammad was murdered.
We drove through Fawwar Refugee Camp and through some Olive Groves before reaching an overlook. The person we were with informed us "there's the school and right over there is where he was shot." The valley drew a winding road until we reached the top of a hill and to the family's house.
Inside the home two of Muhammad's siblings were accompanied by his mother and grandmother. Muhammad was the third of five children. They started to recount the tragic day. It was clear that Muhammad was indeed a butterfly with the energy only a fourth grader would have. They told us the story of how he had received a UN backpack that day with an intense excitement. "He was the happiest I have ever seen him." When he was showing his family he saw that his older brother was a little disappointed. His older brother went to a different school and they didn't get backpacks. So Muhammad ran all the way back to school to ask his teachers if he could bring a backpack for his brother.
His mother's guess was correct and only students of the school could get backpacks. Alia unzipped the backpack and pulled out some of Muhammad's work books and showing off his excellent grades. They were so proud of their clever child.
His energy contained a lot of generosity. They told us stories of him throwing out seed and catching birds only to hand to friends to play with. He loved birds so much they kept telling us.
After getting home from school that day he did some work with olives that his father had bought and then said he wanted to visit his grandmother. And even though his mom said "maybe tomorrow on Friday," he insisted and ran off for a fifteen minute visit. His grandmother said "I remember praying for his safety three times as he ran out of the house." Apparently the road she lives on can be dangerous with a rocky terrain, and she was given an urge to pray. He then ran off to play soccer with his friends. About thirty minutes later Muhammad was shot by an IOF soldier. Eye witness reports from the village say the soldier raised his hands above his head as if cheering after getting on one knee to aim and shoot at the crowd of players, hitting Muhammad in the abdomen. Muhammad was then driven to the hospital by members of the village, but because of road closures and road blocks they were forced to go thirty minutes out of the way.
Alia was at a grocery store with her father in Yatta, a bigger near by city, when her uncle called her father. She had a feeling the call was for her so she took the phone out of his pocket. It was her uncle who wasn't expecting her, but asked if she heard about any confrontations with the IOF in Al-Rihiya that day. "I said 'it's Muhhamad,' a mother's intuition, but I knew."
When Alia and her father got to the hospital there were already about a hundred or so people from Al-Rihiya there. This is custom when someone from a community is injured by the Occupation military. The doctors kept Alia from seeing Muhammad as they were still in the ER. Other community members tried to comfort her saying "he will be okay it is just a light injury." She would respond with "my son is not big enough to survive a bullet. Let me see him."
When Alia couldn't see her son she fainted. She couldn't remember how long she was unconscious, but when she woke up she saw a bed rolling past her room. At this point in telling the story she started to pull at her hands and wrists. She said "I ripped out all the IVs the doctors had put in her and ran after Muhammad and his team of doctors." She met them at the elevator which they were taking to the operating room three stories up. They told her every second counts and she needed to let them operate on her son. She let them go, but then she ran up the three stories. She fell three times on the way up the stairs to stand outside the operating room while the doctors tried to save her son.
She got to the OR and desperately waited for news on her son. And then she heard the heart monitor turn into a long tone. She saw a doctor run into the OR with three units of blood, and then a doctor walked out. "Muhammad is dead now."
Her twelve year old son hugged her. She was surrounded by about a hundred of her neighbors. And she was crying and shouting for Muhammad. For her generous and loving butterfly. She fainted again.
"We have had terrible pains as poor people in the past, but this is the worst pain I have ever felt in my life."
Community members helped to prepare the body and they took it to the family cemetery which sits below their house. Once the father got home from work they buried their nine year old son.
The four year old that was present as this entire story was being told started to cry and Alia through her intensely grieving eyes comforted him rubbing his forehead.
Later on that day we met with some people from the Fawwar refugee camp. At some point amidst a more than informative and challenging conversation they situated the marytyrdom of Muhammad and other Palestinians, children and adults, within the context of the Israeli policy of "collective punishment." 1,001 Palestinians (273 children like Muhammad, the youngest being 2 year old Laila al-Khatib) have been murdered by the IOF since October 7th, 2023. Another man we met told us his 17 year old son was shot by the IOF in December of 2023. People from his village heard soldiers making bets about hitting someone that day, the winner got a coke. The Israeli policy of collective punishment tries to justify these consistent acts of violence that are seemingly random, as well as to justify entire village raids, home demolitions of people accused of crimes, mass detentions, revoking work permits for entire villages, and many other methods that they say are deterrents but are definitively illegal under international law. Some theorist think about collective punishment as both a method of complete and total control (with the settler colonial goal of population replacement) as well as a reaction to the reality that the occupational forces cannot completely and totally quell resistance.
The IOF's preliminary investigation claimed that the soldiers who murdered Muhammad "deviated from rules of engagement." Unconfirmed reports from a local chat said that the soldier that shot Muhammad admitted that he knew he was shooting at children. No one is expecting that there will be any accountability or conviction.
Once Muhammad's family finished telling us the story of October 16th they then walked us into the bedroom Muhammad slept with his four siblings. There was a special blanket with his picture on it now in the place where he laid his head every night. There, too, was his soccer ball, the shirt he planned to wear to prayers the next day, his perfume, his beloved backpack. His siblings haven't been able to sleep in that room since he was killed. Sleeping in their mother's room instead.
There were some drawings on the wall in permanent marker and we asked "was that Muhammad?" The family's eyes lit up and then started to point to every marking on the wall and saying "Muhammad, Muhammad, Muhammad."
When we left the bedroom the grandma pointed to the other bedroom door and said "Muhammad," and then made the motion of a hammer. Apparently he had taken a hammer and made about nine holes in the door. It is clear he will still be present in those walls, in his generous spirit, in his grandmother's kind eyes, and his mother's insistence on telling his story.
