Jabalia, Gaza – Between the arms of his father and the family who cared for him during his disappearance, little Mohammed plays happily.

About 16 months ago, a 13-month-old Mohammed sat crying beside his mother’s lifeless body, surrounded by the dead and wounded, after an attack on the school the family was sheltering in.

That day, amid the chaos and fear as displaced families fled, he disappeared.

His father, Tareq Abu Jabal, spent more than a year looking for Mohammed while, unbeknownst to him, another man from the school was looking for Tareq.

‘A little guest’

Rasem Nabhan and his family were also displaced and sheltering in al-Rafei School in Jabalia in northern Gaza when two Israeli bombs hit it in late December 2023.

“We were terrified, the children were screaming,” the 41-year-old said. “Moments later, quadcopters appeared, broadcasting orders for everyone to evacuate immediately. There was gunfire everywhere.”

Rasem focused on getting his wife and seven children out of the school with the other women and children, then ran to help extinguish the flames still burning in the bombed classrooms. They needed to check if anyone was left alive.

“Blood covered the walls. … Body parts were scattered on the floor among the wounded and the dead. It was beyond words,” Rasem said.

Amid the carnage, he said, “I saw a baby crying and screaming. Next to him lay the body of a woman – her head and stomach torn apart, her body covered in blood. I think she was his mother.”

He picked up the child and ran, not thinking. “The baby’s face was red, and he could barely breathe, he was crying so hard.”

“I kept asking people around me: ‘Do you know this child? His mother was killed.’ But no one did,” he recounted. “It was impossible. … It felt like the Day of Judgement, everyone fleeing, clutching their children.”

Tanks had surrounded the school by then, he said, forcing everyone to walk south. Rasem walked with the baby in his arms until he reached his wife, who was waiting for him by the road with their children.

“I handed the child to my wife and told her I’d found him at the school with his dead mother,” he said.

Fawakeh Nabhan, Rasem’s 34-year-old wife, took the baby as her older daughters clamoured to be allowed to hold him.

“For a moment, the fear faded as we welcomed this little guest,” she said. “He had the most beautiful face, and I felt an instant connection.”

They nicknamed the baby Hamoud, the diminutive for Mohammed and Ahmed, two popular names, and took him along as they walked south towards Rashid Street, passing through the Israeli army’s Netzarim checkpoint.

They took turns carrying the baby – Rasem, Fawakeh and their two older daughters, 19-year-old Islam and 18-year-old Amina.

“He would fall asleep and wake up in our arms, like any other child, unaware of what was going on around him,” Fawakeh said.

Growing attached

The family didn’t know how old the baby was, but they guessed he was seven to nine months old, based on his size and weight.

“We’d never seen him at the school before and had no idea [about] his real age or when he was born,” Fawakeh added.

The family walked to central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah, resting there a while before continuing to Khan Younis in the south, where they had heard there were spots available at another school-turned-shelter.

“Despite the risks, I felt a school was better than living in a tent. At least we would have a concrete roof over our heads,” Fawakeh said.

The story of their displacements is long and complex because they moved from school to displacement camp to sleeping rough back to a tent for months.

Through it all, Rasem and Fawakeh saw the baby as a source of warmth and joy.

“At first, he was withdrawn and silent, never laughing, no matter how much we tried. For nearly 50 days, he was like that – as if he were searching for his mother and wondering who we were,” Rasem recalled. “But over time, he started to open up. He grew attached to us, and we to him.”

Throughout their displacement, Fawakeh, with Islam and Amina, cared for the baby. But when it came to feeding him, Fawakeh insisted on doing it herself.

But caring for a baby as Israel wages its genocidal war on Gaza is a huge financial strain because formula, diapers and nutritious food are either not available or are exorbitantly priced.

“When we arrived in the south, we bought formula and a pacifier, but he refused. I think he was breastfed by his mother,” Fawakeh said. “In a way, that was a relief because formula was expensive. Instead, I fed him lentils, beans, rice. He ate whatever we ate.”

“He loved bananas so much. We could only afford two – one for him and one for my four-year-old son, Abdullah.”

Diapers had to be rationed as their price skyrocketed, reaching 10 shekels a diaper (about $2.70).

“I would put one diaper on him at night, and during the day, I used cotton cloths that I changed frequently,” Fawakeh explained.

Blessings

As the family moved around, the baby became well known and adored, bringing blessings to the family, Rasem said.

Hamoud did not look like the Nabhans, and people would ask Rasem and Fawakeh about him. When they heard his story, their hearts would melt, and they would shower the little boy with whatever small gifts they could find.

“Our neighbours in the camp would send us plates of food just for him,” Fawakeh said with a laugh. “They would say, ‘Make sure he eats this.’”

“He calls my husband Baba and me Mama. He sleeps in my lap, runs straight to me when he needs comfort,” Fawakeh said, lowering her voice as she glanced at her youngest son.

“Abdullah, my four-year-old, would get so jealous and cry whenever I gave the baby too much attention.”

Overall, the couple’s children – Mohammed, 20; Islam, 19; Amina, 18; Maryam, 12; Nour el-Huda, 10; Mustafa, nine; and Abdallah, four – embraced the baby as one of their own.

Despite numerous offers from organisations, orphan sponsorship programmes and even other families willing to adopt the baby, Rasem refused.

“He is my eighth child. I love him deeply, and I refused the idea of someone taking him from me,” Rasem said.

“My answer was always firm: The only way I would ever let him go is if I found his real family.”

Then, in a hushed voice, he confessed: “But in my heart, I prayed I wouldn’t find them. I stopped searching. We had become too attached.”

A father’s search

As Rasem spoke, Mohammed’s father Tareq, 35, sat nearby listening, smiling at his youngest son.

The father of three – Omar, 14; Tolay, nine; and Mohammed, now 26 months – had never stopped looking for his missing child.

“On the day al-Rafei School was bombed, my wife and three children were inside our classroom,” Tareq recalled. “I was in the schoolyard when the air strike hit. I ran, screaming, towards them.”

The Israeli army had shelled both al-Rafei and the school next door. “In that strike, my wife, my nephew and six others were killed – eight lives lost in an instant,” he said.

“When I reached our classroom, I saw Omar and Tolay, both injured. Omar had shrapnel in his back, and my daughter had been struck in the stomach. Then I saw my wife. … Her body was torn apart.”

His voice faltered. “I collapsed. But somehow, I forced myself to help evacuate her body with the others.”

His wife, Iman Abu Jabal, was 33. Tolay carried shrapnel in her stomach for three months.

“Grief, fear for my wounded children, the screams, the rush to evacuate, the army’s drones circling overhead,” Tareq recounted. “In the panic, I didn’t take Mohammed with me when I carried his siblings out.”

When he went back for Mohammed, he couldn’t find him. The baby was gone.

“I started asking everyone,” he said. “Some told me he had been killed. Others said someone took him. The stories kept changing.”

“I was devastated. I searched through the crowds, but everyone was running, screaming, grabbing their children and fleeing,” he added.

He was not able to find his baby.

He went back into the school with a few others to bury the victims of the bombing.

“We wrapped my wife’s body in a sheet and waited for three hours in a classroom, unable to go outside to the yard to bury her,” Tareq recalled.

“The shelling and gunfire were relentless, but I wanted to bury my wife, no matter what.”

Among those who remained at the school was a surgeon who treated the wounded, including Tareq’s children, as best he could.

“My nephew was bleeding heavily. A young man helped him leave the school and walk to al-Awda Hospital in Jabalia, but he arrived in critical condition and passed away there.”

Tareq and the children spent the night in the school with the others who had stayed to bury their loved ones. In the morning, they snuck out through a gap in the school’s walls, taking detours to reach his brother’s house in western Jabalia.

After dropping the older kids off, Tareq spent the rest of the day searching the hospitals in Jabalia for Mohammed, then at the various spots where displaced people had gathered.

“I was told a family had taken him to the south while others hadn’t seen or heard anything about him.”

But Tareq also had to focus on his other children, traumatised by seeing their mother die and in need of food, medicine and care.

By the end of February 2024, northern Gaza was in the grips of famine, so Tareq decided to move south to save the children from the severe hunger sweeping the region.

As soon as he arrived in Rafah, Tareq resumed his search for Mohammed.

“I started asking relatives, acquaintances and neighbours who were with us in the school we had fled from, but I found no trace of him,” he continued. “I spent days like this until I lost all hope and turned to God.”

“I was seeing people fleeing, leaving their children behind in the bombings and evacuations. I saw children lost and crying. … It made me think about my child.”

Reuniting

On January 27, when displaced families were allowed to return to northern Gaza, the Abu Jabals and the Nabhans walked back to Jabalia.

“By 8am, my children and I were standing on the rubble of our home in Jabalia,” Tareq told Al Jazeera. “We had set out at 4am – we couldn’t wait any longer.”

Rasem and Fawakeh’s family headed out a bit later, and along the way, they were stopped for an interview.

“I talked about my joy to be going back. Then the journalist asked me about the baby, thinking he was my son and how he had grown up in the south,” Rasem recalled.

“I told her he wasn’t my son and explained his story. She was so moved, she made a plea on air for anyone to identify the child’s family,” Rasem added.

The family eventually got to Rasem’s parents’ home in Jabalia, not too far, as they would find out later, from Hamoud’s “real” family.

The next morning, Tareq came across the video from the TV interview.

“His features hadn’t changed although he had grown a little. I started shouting out across the rubble: ‘My son’s alive! My son Mohammed is alive!’

“My brother, his wife, the family and neighbours rushed over, asking what was wrong.

“We all watched the video together. Rasem’s face was familiar because we’d been sheltering at the same school.”

Asking around, Tareq figured out where Rasem’s family was staying and rushed over.

“Me, my children and brother went over, and I introduced myself to Rasem, who recognised me right away.

“Mohammed didn’t recognise me and cried,” he said, smiling in gratitude anyway.

The Nabhans were conflicted, happy that Hamoud, who they now knew was named Mohammed, had found his family but sad that he was leaving.

“It felt like I was giving away a piece of my soul,” Rasem said. “The hardest moment was when they left, and Hamoud was calling me, crying, ‘Baba, Baba!’”

“I spent the night crying from the sadness over Hamoud’s departure,” Fawakeh said, her eyes brimming with tears.

“My daughters cried for an entire week. The house felt like a wake. Hamoud had become a part of us,” Fawakeh added as she held the visiting Mohammed, who still calls her Mama, close.

“I told my husband and Tareq that Hamoud should come see us often. He’s like our son, and he’s very attached to me.

“Luckily, they live nearby, and my children always go to bring him over, so he can spend time with us. He brings us such joy,” she beamed.

Watching the Nabhans playing with his son, Tareq smiled. “I’m so grateful to them, from the bottom of my heart. They raised him as if he were their own. … He was with a family who showed him the love and care of the mother he lost.

“But as you can see, when Mohammed sees Rasem, his wife and their family, he completely forgets about me,” Tareq said.

“He loves them so much.”