Gaza Clown Who Lost Entire Family Brings Laughter to Children Amid War

Ahmed Mahmud Kamil Abu Seker is 28, from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, and he has lost everything that once made up his life. During Israel’s war on Gaza, his entire family was killed. There was no gradual goodbye, no time to process the loss, just an emptiness left behind in a place already drowning in grief. And yet, in the middle of this devastation, Ahmed does something unexpected. He puts on a clown costume, paints his face, and goes out to meet children who are growing up surrounded by rubble, fear, and trauma.

He doesn’t claim that laughter can heal their wounds or undo what they’ve seen. He knows it can’t. What it can do, he says, is give them a moment, just a small break from reality. In shelters, on damaged streets, or near ruined homes, children gather around him. At first, they watch quietly. Then a smile appears. Then laughter. For a few minutes, they are not thinking about airstrikes, displacement, or the people they have lost. They are just kids again.

For Ahmed, this work is personal. After losing his family, he says volunteering as a clown is what keeps him alive. It gives him a reason to wake up, to step outside, to keep moving forward when everything inside him wants to stop. Recent photo stories and reports show him getting ready among destroyed buildings, adjusting his costume before stepping into crowds of children whose lives have been shaped by war long before they could understand it.

His story has resonated far beyond Gaza because it shows something politics often miss the human instinct to give, even when there is nothing left to give from. Ahmed cannot change the course of the war or bring back those he lost. But for a few minutes at a time, he can bring laughter to children who desperately need it. In a place where hope feels fragile and rare, that small act has become a quiet form of resistance a reminder that humanity survives, even in the worst of circumstances.