Sixteen-year-old Mohammed Eyad Azzam says he was a “pampered” child before an Israeli air attack in Gaza killed his immediate family, leaving him as the sole provider for his elderly grandmother.Mohammed was at home on the morning of October 11, 2024, with his parents and siblings in the Jabalia refugee camp, northern Gaza, when without warning an Israeli warplane struck, bringing his family’s multistorey building down on top of them.“I was sitting safely with my parents and my two older brothers … I was buried under the rubble for about 10 minutes,” Mohammed told Al Jazeera. “It was pure suffering.”Mohammed’s grandmother managed to dig him out of the wreckage of the home, and the next thing he remembers is waking up in his neighbour’s house on a ventilator. “I survived by a miracle,” he said.Relentless Israeli bombing meant Mohammed was unable to give his parents and two brothers a proper funeral at a cemetery, so instead he buried his parents and siblings in a small, makeshift plot of land.Overnight, the teenager was thrust into adulthood, and he now lives amid the thousands of displaced in northern Gaza’s Shati refugee camp, spending his days lighting fires and carrying heavy water containers for his grandmother.“My life flipped from happiness to grief. I used to be pampered, but now I am responsible for everything,” he said.Amid all the challenges, Mohammed has found one escape from his daily turmoil: football.A …
