“Your lives will continue. With new events and new faces. They are the faces of your children who will fill your homes with noise and laughter.”
These were the last words written by my sister in a text message to one of her daughters.
Dr. Soma Baroud was murdered on Oct. 9, when Israeli warplanes bombed a taxi that carried her and other tired Gazans near the Bani Suhaila roundabout close to Khan Yunis. Whether she was on her way to or from the hospital where she worked does not matter now.
The news of her assassination arrived through a screenshot copied from a Facebook page: “Update: these are the names of the martyrs of the latest Israeli bombing of two taxis in the Khan Yunis area.” Soma’s name was the fifth on the list.
I refused to believe it, even as more posts appeared. I kept calling her over and over, hoping that the line would crackle and I would hear her kind, motherly voice say: “Marhaba Abu Sammy. How are you, brother?” But she never picked up.
I had told her repeatedly that she does not need to bother with elaborate text or audio messages because of the unreliable internet connection and electricity. “Every morning,” I said, “just type: ‘We are fine.’” But she would often skip days without writing. When she finally did, the messages were never brief. Her words linked her daily struggle for survival with her fears for her children, poetry, Qur’anic verses and references to novels, particularly Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude.” She often spun our conversations into complex philosophical discussions, while I would just listen and say, “Yes … totally … I agree … 100 percent.”
For us, Soma was a larger-than-life figure. Her sudden absence has shocked us to the point of disbelief. Her children, though grown up, feel orphaned. And her brothers, me included, feel the same way.
I wrote about Soma in my book “My Father Was a Freedom Fighter” because she was central to our lives and survival in the Gaza refugee camp.
The firstborn, and only daughter, she had to carry a much greater share of the work and expectations than the rest of us.
As a child, she endured the death of our eldest brother, Anwar, due to a lack of medicine in the camp. It introduced her to a pain that would never leave her, a pain that persisted until her murder by a US-supplied Israeli bomb in Khan Yunis.
Two years after the death of the first Anwar, another boy was born and named Anwar to carry on the legacy. Soma cherished him, maintaining a special friendship with him for decades.
My father, a self-taught intellectual and a principled man, did everything he could to provide for the family. Soma, often barefoot, stood by him every step of the way. When he became a merchant, buying and repackaging goods to sell in the camp, Soma was his main helper, despite the physical toll.
“Soma’s little finger is worth more than a thousand men,” my father often reminded us, underscoring her importance to our family. Now, as a martyr, that legacy is eternal.
Years later, my parents sent her to Aleppo to obtain a medical degree. She returned to Gaza, where she spent more than three decades healing others, though never herself.
She worked at Al-Shifa Hospital, Nasser Hospital and other medical centers and later opened her own clinic. Soma was a member of a generation of female doctors in Gaza that truly changed the face of medicine, putting great emphasis on women’s medical care and mental health, recognizing the central but vulnerable role of women in Gaza’s war-torn society.
When my daughter Zarefah visited her before the war, she told me that Soma was adored by the women doctors, nurses and medical staff who surrounded her whenever she entered the hospital.
At one point, it felt like all of Soma’s suffering was finally paying off: a loving husband, a home in Khan Yunis with an olive orchard and five children pursuing successful careers.
Even under siege, life felt manageable. But her husband, Hamdi, was killed in February by an Israeli quadcopter. His body was never found and she clung to the hope that he might still be alive. Her children dug through the wreckage of the site, trying to find Hamdi’s remains so they could give him a proper burial. They were attacked by drones as they searched, yet they returned, digging with shovels.
To survive, Soma’s family split up, taking refuge in camps and other homes. Soma, exhausted, traveled on foot between towns and camps to check on her children.
“I am exhausted,” she kept telling me. “All I want from life is for this war to end, for new cozy pajamas, my favorite book and a comfortable bed.”
“My heart aches. Everything is gone. Three decades of life, of memories, of achievement, all turned into rubble,” she wrote.
Despite this devastation, she refused to leave. She stayed close to the ruins of her home, sending me photos of what she salvaged from the rubble: an old family photo, a small olive tree, a birth certificate.
My last message to her, just hours before she was killed, was a promise that, after the war, the family would meet in Egypt or Turkiye and we would shower her with gifts and love. I finished with, “let’s start planning now. Whatever you want. You just say it. Awaiting your instructions.” She never saw the message.
Even as local news reported her death, I refused to believe it. I continued to call. “Please pick up, Soma, please pick up,” I begged. Only when a video emerged of white body bags arriving at Nasser Hospital did I think that maybe my sister was indeed gone.
One of the bags had her name, “Soma Mohammed Mohammed Baroud,” written across the thick white plastic. Her colleagues gently laid it on the ground. I could not bear to watch as they opened it to verify her identity. I looked the other way.
I remember her as she wanted to be seen: strong, kind, wise and a person whose little finger is worth more than a thousand men.
But why do I still check my messages, hoping she will text me to tell me that it was all a misunderstanding and that she is OK?
Soma was buried under a small mound of dirt somewhere in Khan Yunis.
My phone keeps ringing with condolences.
No more messages from her.
Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of six books. His latest book, co-edited with Ilan Pappé, is Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak Out. His other books include My Father was a Freedom Fighter and The Last Earth. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net.
