At just 10 years old, Noah al-Saqa dreamed of becoming an architect to help rebuild the devastated Gaza Strip.
In the week leading up to his birthday on 6 May, Noah kept asking his parents to prepare for it. But with empty markets and no ingredients for cakes or sweets, a celebration felt out of reach.
Since 2 March, no food, goods, or humanitarian aid has entered Gaza. Still, his mother, Faten, 38, searched through market stalls for days until she managed to find a few items of white flour, sugar, baking powder and an egg to make him a simple piece of cake.
“He invited all his cousins, aunts, uncles, and friends from our neighbourhood to celebrate with him,” said his father Daoud al-Saqa, 43. “Even though we had little to celebrate because of the war, his joy filled us with overwhelming happiness.”
There was nothing Saqa could give him as a gift, so he offered Noah 20 shekels, about eight dollars, and told him he could buy anything he liked.
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“His gifts were a football and 170 shekels collected from his aunts and uncles. He wanted to save them to buy a bicycle,” his father said, fighting back tears.
“I hugged him and kissed him. I never imagined it would be the last time.”
Fateful afternoon
Noah was overjoyed. He couldn’t sleep that night from excitement and refused to change out of his birthday clothes.
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The next day, he asked his mother for something to eat. When she told him the only option was canned meat, he took 20 shekels of his birthday money and said he was going to play football with his friends and buy crisps from a nearby market.
Around 3pm, two Israeli air strikes hit the area, targeting the crowded al-Thailandi restaurant, in Gaza City’s northern Rimal neighbourhood, and the adjacent market.
“It was the most horrific sound of explosions I’ve heard since the beginning of the war, then the screams of people calling for help,” Saqa said.
Saqa and his eldest son, Mohammed, 15, were working at their stall on al-Wihda Street, just 150 metres away, when the attack took place. They ran towards the scene to help the wounded.
“I saw over seven children killed – students, passersby, kids with their parents – along with dozens of others, young and old,” he said. At least 33 people were killed in the attack and dozens wounded.
“Then something hit me. I called my wife to check on Noah. She looked for him in the house, but he wasn’t there.”
‘He was gone’
Panic set in. Saqa searched the streets, checking the wounded and the dead. When there was no sign of Noah, he rushed to al-Shifa Hospital, just 200 metres away. His wife and other sons joined him.
“I was searching the faces of the wounded and the dead, calling his name over and over – ‘Noah!’” he said. “There were so many bodies.”
‘I was searching the faces of the wounded and the dead, calling his name over and over. There were so many bodies’
– Daoud al-Saqa, Noah’s father
A stranger approached him and asked if he could describe his son. Then he asked Saqa to follow him to another room.
There, lying on the ground for lack of space or hospital beds, was Noah – his small body lying in a pool of blood.
“His mother screamed and collapsed. I begged the doctors to save him, he was still breathing. They rushed to him and connected the machines, but within minutes, the monitor went flat,” the father said. “He was gone.”
Noah was pampered, generous and full of dreams. He would tear pieces from the family’s scarce bread to feed wild birds at the window. He was energetic and loved by everyone – relatives, neighbours, even strangers.
“He always said he couldn’t wait to grow up,” Saqa recalled. “His big dream was to become an architect – to rebuild our house, our neighbourhood, and Gaza.”
‘Who will I play with now?’
Like all children in Gaza, Noah was terrified of the bombs. Whenever he heard explosions, he would run to his father, hug him tightly, and scream in fear.
“Don’t be afraid, I’m here with you,” Saqa would whisper, trying to calm him.
‘My son was innocent – he was stolen from me. What father can endure the kind of pain that burns in my chest?’
Daoud al-Saqa, Noah’s father
Saqa and his family of six had lived in the al-Talateni neighbourhood in central Gaza City, but their house was destroyed by an Israeli air strike in 2023. They moved to a relative’s house on al-Rimal Street after Israeli forces ordered civilians to relocate there, claiming it was a “safe zone”.
But even in that so-called safe zone, the bombing never stopped, and they had nowhere else to go.
Noah often asked his father if there was a place in the world without bombing, if they could go there, and when the war would end. “It will stop very soon, my love,” Saqa would tell him.
“His brother Adam [who is 12] keeps holding the football he brought as a gift for Noah, crying and asking me, ‘Who will I play with now?’ I have no answers,” Saqa said.
“Why is the world silent while our children are being killed? My son was innocent – he was stolen from me.
“What father can endure the kind of pain that burns in my chest? What was my son’s crime? That he was Palestinian and lived in Gaza? Has our blood become so cheap?”
