Lareen Al-Haddad
Age 7
Lareen was 7 years old. Her family called her Alina. She was the only daughter; she had two brothers. Her mother, Noor, described her as the heart of their family, her little angel, her companion, her everything. Her best friend was named Hana. On the morning she was killed, Lareen had gone out to buy one fortified biscuit for a holiday snack. In the days before, she had told her family she felt she was going to die soon. She told her parents over and over that she was scared, and her parents had no idea what they could do.
Her mother was trying to raise money online for them to all leave Gaza, but they were hardly getting any donations. Almost everyone in the country was jobless, living in the streets or in tents. Lareen’s mother and father felt terrible and had wanted to buy her new Eid clothes—but they couldn’t afford them. Instead, they could only give Lareen enough for that one biscuit.
They had followed every order. They evacuated south. They returned north during a ceasefire. When the war resumed and new orders came, they displaced again. There was no exit from Gaza itself—just an endless cycle of moving from one bombed place to the next. In the middle of grief and the heavy burden of high rent, Lareen’s father tried to bring food for their children, but a man in a tank tracked him and shot him in the leg, leaving him badly injured.
Then, on the fifth day of Eid al-Adha, a man in a drone viewed Lareen and her father through a screen. The man missiled her as she ate her biscuit with her dad. They were both murdered. Her mother and siblings survived. Her mother now lives in constant terror: “My daily fear is that I wake up and find my children next to me; I’m afraid to wake up and not find them. My life in Gaza is all fears—all fear, all death.”
The votes that paid for the weapons
House Bill, H.R. 8034: Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2024
House Resolution, H.Res. 1160: Rule for H.R. 8034/8035/8036/8038 omnibus packaging