FAce-lIft Gaza: Yaqeen Hammad

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Exhibit Entry Twenty-Two Distortion Dialogue

They killed the joy.

“I try to bring a bit of joy to the other children so that they can forget the war.”

There are names that should never have to appear in memorials.
Voices that should never be silenced by war.
Smiles that should never be turned into symbols.

Yaqeen Hammad was one of them.

She was 11. Gaza’s youngest influencer. A bright spark in the middle of rubble. A child who chose joy—not because life was easy, but because she knew the world needed to see that Gaza still danced. That it still sang. That it still existed.

Yaqeen posted videos for her over 100,000 followers:
– showing how her family cooked with almost nothing;
– offering messages of strength to displaced families;
– smiling, laughing, reminding her audience that life still happened under siege.

“Despite the war and the genocide, we came today to make the children happy.”

She wasn’t just documenting survival—she was performing something closer to grace. The kind of grace Palestinians are often expected to perform, just to be mourned.

Because here’s the cruelty: Palestinians are not allowed to simply exist and be defended. They must first perform humanity, innocence, relatability. They must make themselves palatable to foreign audiences. They must be children with soft eyes. Artists with delicate brushstrokes. Doctors who smile through grief. Influencers with heartwarming captions.

They are not just resisting genocide.
They are resisting erasure and indifference.

Yaqeen understood this in ways a child should never have to. Her joy was not naïve—it was tactical. Her joy was not performative—it was strategic. She was showing the world that Gaza had culture, heart, children, warmth. That this was not a battlefield—it was a neighbourhood. A kitchen. A playground. A story still unfolding.

And then, on May 23, 2025, Yaqeen was killed in an Israeli airstrike on her home in the Al-Baraka neighborhood of Deir al-Balah. Her family was preparing for lunch. She was 11.

They killed her with the same disregard they have shown to over 16,500 children in Gaza since October 2023. They didn’t see her followers. Her voice. Her spirit. They saw coordinates. And they dropped the bomb anyway.

She is not an exception.
She is the record.
A record that is growing faster than the world’s ability—or willingness—to care.

Yaqeen was also a humanitarian. Alongside her brother Mohamed, she delivered food, toys, and clothes to displaced families as part of the Ouena Collective. She was part of the people she spoke for. She didn’t study media. She was media. Her presence was the story. Her absence now is the wound.

And it’s not just about documenting pain. It’s about how art—yes, even silly TikToks—is a form of comfort. Resistance. Testimony. When bombs fall, people don’t just run—they write. They paint. They sing. Because art is how we hold ourselves together when the world is tearing us apart.

Yaqeen’s videos weren’t made for spectacle. They were made to live. And now, in her absence, they live on.

“Is there anything more beautiful than the smile of Gaza children?”

So let us be very clear:
They did not just kill a child.
They killed a storyteller.
They killed a joy-bringer.
They killed the future.

But her light endures.

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