A 19-year-old Palestinian blogger who attracted a large following on social media for documenting daily life in Gaza has been killed in an Israeli airstrike. Medo Halimy was struck on Monday while visiting an internet cafe in a tent with his friend Talal Murad.
The tent, which offered Wi-Fi to displaced Palestinians, was where Halimy often met with friends and collaborators.
Halimy and Murad had taken a selfie together just moments before the strike, captioning it "Finally Reunited" on Instagram. Then, a flash of light and an explosion of white heat and sprayed earth shook the area.
Murad, 18, described feeling pain in his neck and seeing Halimy bleeding from his head. A car on the coastal road in front of them was engulfed in flames, the apparent target of the Israeli airstrike. It took 10 minutes for an ambulance to arrive, and some hours later doctors pronounced Halimy dead, Associated Press reported.
“He represented a message,” Murad said on Friday, still recovering from his shrapnel wounds and reeling from the Israeli airstrike that killed his friend. “He represented hope and strength.”
Halimy built up a social media audience after his family was forced to flee their home when Israel began its military operation in Gaza following the 7 October attacks. More than 250,000 people followed him on Instagram and TikTok after he began posting videos detailing his life as one of Gaza's displaced citizens in Rafah and Khan Younis.
He filmed himself going about his day: waiting restlessly in long lines for drinking water, showering with a jar and a bucket (“there's no shampoo or soap, of course"), scavenging ingredients to make a surprisingly tasty baba ganoush, the Middle East's smoky eggplant dip. His videos also captured boredom and resilience (“then I went back to the tent, and did nothing”).
Tributes poured in from friends worldwide, including those he met during his exchange program in Harker Heights, Texas. His followers expressed shock and sadness, mourning the loss of a close friend.
Israel's war on Gaza has produced a torrent of images numbingly familiar to viewers around the world: Bombed-out buildings, contorted bodies, chaotic hospital corridors.
Israel has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians so far, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. It has also transformed legions of ordinary teenagers, who have nothing to do every day but survive, into war correspondents for the social media.
Halimy's final video, posted hours before he was killed, showed him scribbling in a notebook, his pages covered with mysterious black redaction bars.
“I started designs for my new secret project,” he said from the tent cafe that would later be struck by Israeli airstrike.
