Gaza Boy Thought Dead Found Alive and Safe with Mother

In a remarkable turn of events, a young Palestinian boy who was reported to have been killed by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) outside an aid distribution site in Gaza has been found alive. Eight-year-old Abdul Rahim Muhammad Hamden, nicknamed Abboud, and his mother Najlaa were safely extracted from the Gaza Strip earlier this month. Their current location remains undisclosed for security reasons. The boy had become the center of international attention after a former Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) contractor, Anthony Aguilar, claimed in multiple media interviews that he had witnessed the child’s death after leaving an aid site on May 28th. Aguilar, a 25-year veteran of the U.S. Army and retired Green Beret Lt. Colonel, had shared photos of a barefoot boy approaching aid workers while carrying bags of food, claiming the child had been shot and killed by IDF forces shortly afterward.

The controversy began when Aguilar provided detailed accounts to several news outlets and even a U.S. Senator about the alleged incident. He described an emotional encounter with the Palestinian child, claiming the boy had kissed his hand, touched his face, and thanked him for food supplies. However, video footage later obtained by Fox News Digital contradicted key elements of this account, showing the boy actually interacted with Aguilar’s colleague, not Aguilar himself. More concerning were the inconsistencies in Aguilar’s testimonies regarding the location of the incident, as he referenced three different distribution sites in separate interviews. The GHF maintained that no such shooting incident had been reported at any of their sites on the date in question, and confirmed that one site mentioned wasn’t even operational at that time.

Further investigation revealed that Abboud hadn’t gone missing until July 28th—two full months after Aguilar claimed the boy had been killed. According to information gathered by the GHF, Abboud had run away to be with his birth mother amid a family dispute with his stepmother, whose custody he had been placed in following his father’s death, as per Palestinian law. What began as an investigation to verify or disprove Aguilar’s claims soon became a more urgent mission, as GHF officials grew concerned about potential threats from Hamas against the child and his family. A GHF representative explained that Hamas had a vested interest in ensuring the boy wasn’t found alive, as his survival would discredit the narrative of a Palestinian child being killed by Israeli forces.

Through diligent efforts and communication with local Palestinians, GHF teams eventually located Abboud and his mother. In a significant development, Najlaa brought her son to a GHF site, where arrangements were made to extract them along with four male family members who had reportedly received direct threats from Hamas. The organization verified their identities using facial recognition software that compared the boy in their custody with images captured in Aguilar’s original photos. Additional verification came through biometric data and documentation, including the death certificate of Abboud’s father. Notably, the boy even brought the same shirt he had been wearing in Aguilar’s footage—the very clothing Aguilar claimed the child was wearing when allegedly shot.

When confronted with evidence that the boy was alive, Aguilar maintained that the child presented by the GHF was not the same one he had photographed, claiming discrepancies in physical features such as scars. However, GHF representatives confirmed that the boy’s identifying marks and scars were actually used as part of their verification process. The organization has firmly characterized Aguilar’s account as false, with spokesperson Chapin Fay describing him as a “disgruntled former employee” who was “terminated for cause” following “volatile conflicts with staff and erratic behavior.” This characterization appears supported by text messages in which Aguilar allegedly threatened a GHF official that he “could be your best friend, or your worst nightmare” if not reinstated to his position.

The resolution of this case provides a rare positive development amid the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. On September 9th, MSNBC’s Chris Hayes updated viewers that the boy reported dead had been confirmed alive and was now safely out of Gaza. David Panzer, counsel for UG Solutions (the subcontractor that had employed Aguilar), suggested that Aguilar’s actions following his termination on June 13th raised “substantial questions of motive.” The contractor had received $30 million in U.S. government funding to support humanitarian work in Gaza. While questions remain about how such serious allegations gained international traction before verification, the safe extraction of Abboud and his family represents a small but significant victory amid the ongoing conflict that has claimed thousands of lives since October 2023.