Sahar Bakir lives in war-torn Gaza with her children. During the intense conflict of 2014, Sahar’s six-year-old son Ismail was playing soccer on the beach with three of his friends when they were hit by a rocket. The impact was fatal and as well as taking Ismail’s life, it destroyed his mother’s too.

 

Sahar remembers that day clearly. “I heard about the bombing on the beach,” she says, “so I came out of the kitchen to check on my children and saw that Ismail wasn’t there. I screamed loudly. I don’t know what I was doing. When I heard the news, I Iost my mind. I started hitting my head on the car window and my children tried to hold me.”

Sahar raced to the hospital, and what she was about to see, no mother should ever have to witness. “I grabbed it [Ismail’s body] from them and held my son. He was burnt, he was in pieces. What can any mother feel when she sees her son in this way?”

The scars of that fateful day will remain with Sahar forever. Life is difficult enough living without her son, but in addition to that pain she has no income and each day struggles to feed her remaining children and survive in what some have called the ‘largest open air prison on earth’. A donation won’t bring Sahar’s son back, but it will help her to start putting the pieces of her life back together.

Your Zakat and Sadaqah could make life better for Sahar, her children and so many others living in poverty in Gaza.  Gather the Rewards of Ramadan and give generously to those in need in this blessed month.  Indeed the Prophet (peace be upon him) was the most generous in giving charity in Ramadan and said: “The best charity is that given in Ramadan.” (Tirmidhi)

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