Mervat Najib Deeb Al-Daalsa

Their life

Full Name: Mervat Najib Deeb Al-Daalsa
Age: 48 years old
Marital Status: Married
Residence: Al-Nuseirat Refugee Camp, Gaza Strip
Date of Martyrdom: 21 February 2024
Circumstances of Death: Mervat was martyred when Israeli occupation aircraft bombed the Al-Daalsa family home in Al-Nuseirat Refugee Camp without any prior warning. The house was sheltering multiple displaced persons at the time. The airstrike killed Mervat and several other civilians.

Mervat Najib Deeb Al-Daalsa was a 48-year-old Palestinian woman from the heart of Al-Nuseirat Refugee Camp in central Gaza—a place she called home her entire life. Married and deeply devoted to her family, Mervat was a cornerstone of her household, known for her strength, quiet generosity, and deep sense of responsibility. She lived her life surrounded by the pressures of occupation, siege, and displacement, yet never let these hardships extinguish her dignity or love for those around her.

She carried the weight of generational trauma common to Palestinians in the camps—born into a community shaped by the memory of the Nakba and decades of ongoing military aggression. Despite these realities, Mervat created stability for her family. Whether preparing meals, caring for children and elders, or providing emotional support during bombardments, she was the kind of woman on whom entire families depended.

On the night of February 21, 2024, Israeli warplanes targeted the Al-Daalsa family home without prior notice. The home had been a sanctuary for multiple displaced families who had fled earlier strikes. The attack flattened the building. Mervat was inside, likely tending to the needs of her household or comforting those around her. In an instant, her life was taken, buried beneath the rubble alongside loved ones and neighbors.

Her death, like so many others in Gaza, was not marked by combat but by the targeting of civilian spaces—homes filled with mothers, children, and the elderly. Mervat had no political affiliation. Her only "crime" was existing in a home marked for destruction in a war where civilians are given no refuge.

She is remembered by relatives as a nurturing soul who faced war with quiet courage, someone whose absence leaves a painful void. Her loss is deeply felt not only by her family but also by the wider community, where she had long been a comforting presence.

Mervat Najib Deeb Al-Daalsa’s name now joins the long list of martyrs who were killed not for what they did, but for where they lived. Her story is a testament to the women of Gaza—strong, unshaken, and too often buried before their time.

How they died

Killed by Israel airstrike

Mervat Najib Deeb Al-Daalsa, 48 years old, was killed on February 21, 2024, in an Israeli airstrike that struck the Al-Daalsa family home in Al-Nuseirat Refugee Camp, central Gaza. The airstrike came without any form of prior warning—no evacuation notice, no phone call, no signal—leaving the family and others sheltering there with no time to escape.

The building, which had become a sanctuary for multiple displaced families fleeing attacks elsewhere, was suddenly and violently reduced to rubble. Mervat was inside at the time, likely tending to her home or providing comfort and support to the other women and children present. The force of the explosion caused the complete collapse of the structure. According to civil defense workers, she died either instantly from blast trauma—including internal injuries and shock—or within moments, trapped under layers of concrete and debris.

A plea from the family

In the aftermath of the airstrike that killed 48-year-old Mervat Najib Deeb Al-Daalsa on February 21, 2024, grief-stricken relatives and neighbors gathered near the wreckage of the Al-Daalsa family home in Al-Nuseirat Refugee Camp. The pain of losing Mervat—a mother, a wife, and a figure of stability—was worsened by the brutal manner of her death and the complete lack of warning before the strike. Her surviving family members issued heart-wrenching pleas through media and humanitarian workers, imploring the world to see their suffering not as background noise, but as a deliberate human tragedy. One of her sons, covered in dust and still in shock, said: “My mother was everything to us. She gave us life and she gave us strength. We were hiding in our home because we had nowhere else to go—and they killed her there. Where is the justice?” Another relative, who had been displaced from Gaza City and was staying in the same house, cried out: “They tell us to move to safe places. We moved, and we still died. My aunt was preparing tea when the missile hit. She didn’t even get a chance to scream.” A neighbor who helped recover the bodies from the rubble

Why we remember them

This record exists so that Mervat Najib Deeb Al-Daalsa, and all who are named in this archive, are never reduced to a number.

References & sources