👦👦 Israel and the United States just slaughtered these two sweet boys in Gaza. This is not a ceasefire.
I am just so tired of this. And so angry. These boys survived two years of genocide only to be slaughtered during a fake "ceasefire"
Family,
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You see the photo above.
Two sweet boys. Two brothers. Hair brushed, clothes clean, faces that look like any kids you’ve ever loved or stood next to at a school assembly. They’re alive in that picture. Handsome. Just little kids.
These are Fadi and Jumaa Tamer Abu ‘Asi.
One is eight.
The other is eleven.
My friend Hani, who works for UNRWA here in the United States and whose entire family lives in Gaza, posted their photo and wrote these words:
“Two brothers — Fadi and Jumaa Tamer Abu ‘Asi, just 8 and 11 years old — were killed today by an Israeli strike near Al-Farabi School in Bani Suheila, east of Khan Younis. Rest in peace 🕊️
And let’s be clear: the killing has not stopped.
Not in Gaza.
Not in the West Bank.
Not in the neighboring countries repeatedly struck by Israel.This is today’s reality — children still being targeted and killed.
So I ask sincerely: Does this look like a ceasefire to you? Does it sound like one?”
I read that, then looked back at their faces, and I felt like the air left my chest.
Two Brothers, One School, One Strike
We are told, over and over, that there is a ceasefire.
We are told that “calm” is returning. We’re told about “stability,” “de-escalation,” “conditions on the ground improving.”
But today, in Bani Suheila, east of Khan Younis, an Israeli strike hit near Al-Farabi School and killed this eight-year-old and this eleven-year-old. Two brothers. On a day when the world is being assured that the guns are quieter now.
I want you to sit with that.
Not a battlefield.
Not some secret tunnel.
Not a weapons depot.
A school. And two boys.
When Hani posts little bits about his life, I always feel the distance between us and him. He lives here in the United States and works for UNRWA, trying to serve his people from an empire that funds their killers. His body is here. His heart, his mind, his nightmares — they are in Gaza, where his family lives and suffers.
For him, these aren’t news alerts or “updates.” They are his people.
“The Killing Has Not Stopped”
What Hani wrote next is the part that stabbed me:
“And let’s be clear: the killing has not stopped.
Not in Gaza.
Not in the West Bank.
Not in the neighboring countries repeatedly struck by Israel.”
He’s not speaking as a pundit. He’s speaking as a man whose family is still there. He is watching this every single day. He knows that while leaders sign papers and cameras roll, the bombs and shells and bullets do not obey the press releases.
The killing has not stopped.
Not in Gaza, where kids like Fadi and Jumaa are still being targeted and killed.
Not in the West Bank, where settlers and soldiers have used this genocide as cover to accelerate their own campaign of theft and terror.
Not in southern Lebanon, Syria, and other neighboring lands Israel keeps striking, like the violence is a traveling show that can just set up anywhere it wants.
I know governments and pundits are eager to move on, to declare this chapter “over,” to rebrand genocide as “post-conflict stabilization.” But Hani’s words cut through all of that fake sophistication and go straight to the heart:
“This is today’s reality — children still being targeted and killed.”
Does This Look Like a Ceasefire to You?
For months now, we’ve been trained to accept a simple script:
Israel massacres Palestinians.
The world pretends not to notice until the body count gets so high it can’t be denied.
Then come the carefully worded statements. The “calls for restraint.” The “worries” about civilians.
Maybe, if enough pressure builds, we get a word like “ceasefire.”
But what does that word mean to a mother in Khan Younis burying her eight-year-old and eleven-year-old sons killed near a school?
What does it mean to Hani, seeing this photo of these boys alive on his phone one week, then reading their names on a list of the dead the next?
When the killing of children continues, when new graves are dug every day, when “isolated strikes” still slam into homes and schools and playgrounds, what exactly has ceased?
As my brother Hani asks:
“Does this look like a ceasefire to you? Does it sound like one?”
If your answer is no — if your heart and your eyes and your conscience say no — then you have to let that shape how you move in the world. How you talk. How you vote. How you give. How you pray.
We Cannot Let Their Names Be Swallowed by a Word
One of the tricks of power is to smother real lives under big, vague language.
“Regional stability.”
“Security interests.”
“Strategic objectives.”
“Ceasefire.”
Meanwhile, two boys named Fadi and Jumaa are killed near a school. They have parents. Siblings. Favorite games. Fears. Dreams you’ll never hear about.
Those lives get flattened into “civilian casualties” in a paragraph somewhere, and then a few days later even that paragraph disappears into a deeper fog.
I refuse to let that be the end of their story.
They were brothers. Eight and eleven. Their last moments on this earth should not have been terror and fire near a school under a sky that has never stopped trying to kill them.
If you claim to care about children, if you claim to care about peace, if you ever posted “pray for peace” or “stop the war” when you saw the images from Gaza, I need you to understand that peace is not a word that lives in statements. It lives in whether kids like Fadi and Jumaa get to grow up.
And right now, they don’t.
What We Do With This
I can’t bring these boys back. Neither can you. Neither can Hani.
What we can do is refuse to play along with the lie that the genocide is over, that the killing has stopped, that Gaza is now a “post-conflict” story.
We can refuse to let words like “ceasefire” be used to wash the blood off the hands of the people who keep funding and arming and justifying this, day after day.
We can honor what Hani is doing — working through UNRWA while his family is still in Gaza — by using our own voices and platforms to keep saying their names, sharing their faces, and telling the truth about what is actually happening on the ground.
If my work helps you see that more clearly, helps you talk about it with your family, your friends, your co-workers, then I’m asking you to help me keep doing it. Please click here to become a member of The North Star today so that we can keep this reporting and storytelling free for the world — free for people in Gaza and everywhere else who cannot pay for a paywall even while their lives are on the line. And if you’re in a position to build a stronger foundation for everything we’re doing, please click here to join as a monthly, annual, or founding member.
Love and appreciate each of you.
Your friend and brother,
Shaun
Don’t Stop Here
Don’t stop with this one story, as heartbreaking as it is. I want you to keep reading, learning, and sharing:
Read them. Talk about them with your people. Forward this post to three people who still think this is over, who still think a word like “ceasefire” means what it’s supposed to mean.
Because as long as little boys in Gaza are being killed near their schools, the killing has not stopped — no matter what anyone tells you.
The rage I feel is destroying my health. I am horrified by my country and despise Netanyahu .. what a criminal .
The atrocities never end.