Artist Hazem Harb's 10-year-old niece killed by Israeli airstrike in Gaza: 'I lost my trust in humanity'

The Dubai-based Palestinian creative's sister is also in critical condition

Artist Hazem Harb and his niece, Lara, whose head was struck by shrapnel during an Israeli airstrike in Gaza. Photo: Hazem Harb

On July 17 – his birthday – Hazem Harb received news that his family in Gaza had been hit by an Israeli strike. His niece Lara, 10, suffered injuries that would claim her life two days later. His sister, Huda, remains in critical condition.

The Palestinian artist, known for confronting loss through his work, now finds himself mourning the ineffable.

“I am the one who named Lara,” Harb, who lives in Dubai, says. “When she was born, my sister Huda asked me to name her. I am close to my sister and I had a profound connection to Lara. She was an incredibly smart and beautiful child. She was the first in her class. I could write a book about her.”

Huda and her children were returning from a visit to their sister’s house on Thursday when the airstrikes hit. The visit was meant to be a small relief – a respite from the monotony and fear brought on by Israel’s war on Gaza.

A 2017 photo of Lara with a page from her colouring book. Photo: Hazem Harb

“The children were getting restless. Like many children in Gaza right now, they have no toys or anything to distract them. They are home most of the time so, naturally, they get restless and bored,” Harb says. “Lara asked my sister to get them. Huda took them to my older sister’s house.”

While Lara's two sisters and brother survived the airstrike with minimal injuries, her head was struck by shrapnel. “She remained under intensive care for nearly two nights,” Harb says. “We didn’t have much hope. She was breathing, but she was unconscious. We received news on Saturday that she was martyred.”

Huda, meanwhile, suffered significant injuries to her stomach and head.

“Huda is now in intensive care. We moved her to a house because there is no proper hospital or infrastructure to care for her. She can’t process anything right now. Her injuries are extremely dangerous, and she can’t yet process that she lost her daughter.

“There are no words left to describe the horror we are living and the loss my family and I have endured,” Harb adds. “Lara was the entire world to her parents and to our family. She is one of tens of thousand of children slaughtered by this monstrous state. Each of them, the entire world to their families, and each of them mattered.”

Hazem Harb at his 2024 solo exhibition Gauze in Dubai. Photo: Tabari Artspace

This tragedy, he points out, is one of innumerable ones ripping families apart in Gaza. Their deaths are not tragic mistakes, but the result of systematic brutality by Israel.

At least 59,029 Palestinians have been killed and 142,135 wounded since October 2023. According to a May report by Unicef, more than 50,000 children were either killed or injured in the Palestinian enclave.

“Everyone is starving to death, literally,” Harb says. “Feelings have almost no meaning. Sadness, loss and grief are almost secondary because you are dying from the inside. You are dying from hunger, so all feelings are mixing incomprehensibly together.

“I lost my trust in humanity,” he adds. “How can this happen? How can this happen in today’s world? We aren’t learning from history. We are seeing these horrors on our screens. I have no hope, no trust in humanity.”

Tabari Artspace, the Dubai gallery that represents the artist, issued a statement in response to the tragedy.

“This devastating loss is a painful reminder of the reality thousands face daily in Gaza,” the gallery posted on Instagram. “Children and innocent people continue to die – from bombs, from starvation, from systemic violence. These are not just headlines. These are lives. This demands our attention, our outrage and our compassion. No forgiveness.”