Gaza's Great Omari Mosque, Now in Ruins - The New York Times nytimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from nytimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Lena Badr’s grandmother, Aziza Badr, was killed by an Israeli airstrike in Az-Zawayda neighborhood in Gaza on Dec. 23, 2023. (Lena Badr)(NEW YORK) When Palestinian American Lena Badr learned about the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, she said she was "horrified and immediately concerned" about what Israel s retaliation would mean for the Gaza Strip where part of her family resides.Badr scrambled to reach her family, to send money in anticipation of the hardships ahead: "I knew it would be bad. I did not – I couldn t have envisioned that it would be this bad," said Badr.Since Israel began its retaliatory bombardment of the Gaza Strip, she said two of her family s homes have been hit with airstrikes.The massive loss of life in the Israel-Hamas war has wiped out swaths of family lines and gone with them are parts of the culture they carried, Palestinians say. The loss has become all the more poignant as Arab American Heritage Month celebrations come to an end, wh