The sound of a manual explosion in the al-Daraj neighborhood, east of Gaza City, at four o’clock on the tenth of last May, a cloud of black smoke covered the place, cries and groans echoed inside the house of the Olayan family, and the neighbors’ screams echoed in the street, all of them rushing towards the house.
With all this noise, the family did not absorb the shock yet, and they did not know that they were the target, except when the neighbors gathered to help them inside Jawdat Elayan’s house, which is located on the fourth floor, the most affected.
Yazan (17 years old) was sitting in his room studying his lessons in preparation for the final exams for the eleventh grade, the scientific section of the Al-Azhar Institute, when a missile hit the wall of his room over his body, killing him instantly as a martyr.
As for his father, Jawdat, his mother, and his brother Abdullah, they were all injured by shrapnel from the missile. Suddenly, his uncle, “Jawdat,” stormed the apartment located in the Al-Sahaba neighborhood, east of Gaza City, and gathered his strength despite his back injury. With the help of the neighbors, he rushed with his nephew Yazan to the Shifa Medical Complex. Everyone waits outside the recovery room, hoping for Yazan to recover.
Doctors placed a defibrillator on Yazan’s chest, hoping that it would start beating again, but all attempts were in vain, as Yazan’s heart died from the first moment.
The Elayyan family was dispersed between the hospital rooms. His father, Jawdat, was admitted to the operating room, and he underwent an operation on his foot. A platinum device was implanted in him, and shrapnel was removed from his back and hand. All this time, he did not know that his liver and the last of his children had been martyred, according to the testimony of his brother, Jouda.
Die with honor or live with dignity
Jouda says: “Everyone was afraid to tell my brother Joudat of Yazan’s martyrdom, and to call his son Abdullah and tell him to take care of his mother, and his sister Hala, who is studying engineering abroad, reassured that he was fine.”
He continues: “He asked me to bring him a coffin weighed for him in order to bid him the last farewell.. and he bid him farewell with unparalleled steadfastness, accepting God’s will and destiny, certain that his martyrdom was chosen and honored by God.”
The last moments that gathered Jawdat with his son Yazan, were monitored by the journalists’ cameras, as social networks circulated a video clip of him saying goodbye to him from the recovery bed with patience and equanimity, and whispering in his ear: “May God make it easy for you, my love, our Lord has chosen you as a groom.”
“The occupation is the reason for Yazan’s death. In the end, death is written for all of us. Either death with honor or life with dignity. The occupation will inevitably lead to the demise of whoever wants it and whoever refuses, and those who fail will be consigned to the dustbins of history,” Jawdat (47 years) adds, telling reporters about the incident. the death of his son.
From the bed of recovery, Jawdat called for unity, to adhere to the rope of God, and to follow the path of the Book of God and the Sunnah of His Messenger, so that love would prevail that would lead the Palestinian people to victory.
A student every teacher desires
Yazan knew with a smile that did not leave his face, he smiled at everyone he met, calm, decent, he spent most of the time between the house to study, and the mosque to memorize the Holy Qur’an, his uncle says, adding: The martyr boy memorized 15 parts of the Holy Qur’an, and he was preparing to complete it on vacation summer after the end of the final exams for the current academic year.
About the student who had a reputation for good manners for those who knew him, Nour Ghanem, an English language trainer at AMIDEAST in Gaza, says: “Yazan is a student that any teacher would wish for, with a light spirit and a sweet laugh. He received an Access scholarship to learn the language, which selects the best students at the level Al-Alamy, to join the year-and-a-half English learning program, and he was supposed to graduate from it in September.
She points out that due to his strong desire to learn the language, Yazan refused her request to stop attending language lessons until the end of the Al-Azhar Institute exams.
The teacher says: The institute will miss a dedicated student, serving his colleagues, recalling the last meeting he had with him last Friday when he insisted that she and his colleagues eat cake and tea with him.
The martyr boy was known for his strong support for the FC Barcelona team, and he carries in his bag a paper with the Argentine flag for his love for Messi, and he always hangs the Argentine flag and the Spanish club’s logo in the classroom because of his strong attachment to him, adds teacher Ghanem.
