In Mohammed Razeem’s house in East Jerusalem’s Beit Hanina neighborhood, the presence of his son, Suhaib, fills the home. With pictures on tables, on the partitions, Suhaib’s dwelling reminiscence is in every single place — even because the occasions of his killing on October 7, 2023, usually are not spoken of.
Suhaib, who labored as a shuttle driver, was imagined to take festivalgoers house from the Nova rave on that Saturday morning two years in the past.
As a substitute, he was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists who attacked the pageant and was taken to the house of Pessi Cohen in Kibbutz Be’eri, the place the gunmen had been holed up with 14 dwelling hostages and one lifeless. After a conflict between the terrorists and IDF forces, a lot of the dwelling hostages, together with Suhaib, had been killed.
Till now, Razeem, 66, has by no means spoken publicly about what occurred.
In an interview with The Occasions of Israel within the household house the place Suhaib lived till his homicide, the loss is palpable. But even Suhaib’s siblings, Razeem famous, have not often spoken to the press.
There’s explicit sensitivity in Suhaib’s case. He was an East Jerusalemite, an Arab Muslim, murdered by Hamas terrorists in an assault geared toward Jews and Israelis in a self-proclaimed act of Palestinian nationalist resistance.
Suhaib was 22 when he was killed, the eighth of 9 kids within the household. Like most East Jerusalem residents, the Razeems maintain everlasting residency in Israel however not citizenship.
Suhaib turned a licensed bus driver lower than six months earlier than his homicide, after working in poultry processing for a number of years. He quickly dreamed of shopping for his personal shuttle.
“In our group, we generally gather cash for somebody’s research or for a marriage, so we collected cash for him. He advised his mom, ‘Both I’ll get married or I’ll purchase the shuttle bus, and I’ll pray on it.’”
“Ultimately,” Razeem mentioned, “he determined to purchase the car and labored about 4 or 5 journeys earlier than he was killed. The Nova run was his fifth or sixth job.”
Simply 4 days earlier than Suhaib was killed, Razeem and his spouse traveled with their eldest daughter and her household to Mecca for the umrah pilgrimage. As a religious Muslim, Razeem had been there a number of occasions earlier than, as soon as even with Suhaib. This time, his son stayed behind.
“He mentioned, ‘I gained’t take a shuttle job that day you’ll depart, I’ll drive you to the Allenby Bridge.’ He drove us, we mentioned goodbye, and that was it. We had been imagined to be away for per week and a half, returning Saturday, October 14,” Razeem mentioned.
Mohammed Razem, father of Suhayb Razem who was murdered on October 7, 2023, subsequent to a photographs of his son. October 1, 2025 (Nurit Yohanan, The Occasions of Israel).
Three days later, on October 7, Suhaib arrived on the Nova pageant grounds in southern Israel to select up partygoers. He doubtless arrived simply earlier than Hamas’s shock assault started.
In a video filmed by the terrorists that was printed later in tv reviews, Suhaib is seen on the pageant, surrounded by armed Hamas gunmen. One holds him by the arm and leads him towards others. They ask him in Arabic: “Are you Arab? Are you Arab? The place are the troopers?” One among them says they took his ID and that he’s a shuttle driver, then tells one other fighter: “Take him.”
The terrorists apparently let Suhaib name his household to say he had been kidnapped, although it’s unclear whether or not he referred to as from the pageant grounds or later at Cohen’s home in Kibbutz Be’eri, the place the gunmen barricaded themselves with the hostages.
Suhaib didn’t name his father, who was overseas, however his brothers in Jerusalem.
In line with Razeem, “Suhaib spoke together with his brothers and advised them, ‘They took me.’”
The brothers instantly went to an area East Jerusalem police station and to a Jerusalem Crimson Cross consultant to report the kidnapping.
Later, Suhaib referred to as the brothers once more from the telephone of a Jewish girl who was held captive with him after the abductors let every hostage name their household.
His brothers knowledgeable their older sister, who was with their dad and mom in Mecca, however she saved information of the kidnapping from her dad and mom till Saturday night time, once they had been set to finish the pilgrimage.
“That night time, after ending the umrah, we went again to the resort,” Razeem mentioned. “My daughter lit up like hearth, and mentioned, ‘Come, I have to inform you one thing.’ I requested what occurred. She mentioned, ‘Struggle broke out, and my brother was kidnapped.’ I advised her, ‘My son is lifeless.’ She mentioned, ‘No, father!’ I mentioned, ‘That’s my feeling — that he’s lifeless.’ I referred to as my kids in Israel and so they advised me, ‘No, he’s advantageous, he was kidnapped however he’s okay.’”
Suhaib Razeem held by a Hamas terrorist on the Supernova pageant website, October 7, 2023. (Screenshot/ YouTube)
Nonetheless no clear solutions
Following the information, the household tried to return to Israel early however struggled to get again. The Allenby crossing between Jordan and the West Financial institution, via which they needed to cross to get to and from Saudi Arabia, had been shut down.
Razeem and the opposite relations who had made the journey arrived again at their house in Jerusalem on Thursday afternoon, October 12 — 5 days after the bloodbath.
Throughout that total time, Razeem mentioned, the household had no thought what had occurred to Suhaib, and no official supplied them with updates.
The next Monday, the police referred to as and requested Suhaib’s dad and mom to come back to the station and provides a DNA pattern. In hindsight, the household realized this was to determine his physique; on the time, the police didn’t inform them why they wanted the pattern or that their son had doubtless been killed.
It was 10 days after the October 7 bloodbath, on October 17, that police representatives, docs, and social staff got here to the household house to tell them that Suhaib was lifeless and that they might obtain his physique for burial.
The following day, Suhaib’s physique was introduced by a army ambulance to a hospital in East Jerusalem and from there to burial. Even then, military and state officers didn’t present particulars in regards to the circumstances of his dying.
“They gave us a slip saying he had died, however the reason for dying — we don’t know. Till now, we don’t know,” Razeem mentioned.
Suhaib was laid to relaxation 11 days after his homicide, however, as Razeem famous, in comparison with different victims of October 7, this was comparatively early, given the immense issue of finding and figuring out our bodies from the worst mass-casualty occasion in Israeli historical past.
“Jews who work with my kids had been stunned they gave him again to us so shortly, as a result of for a lot of others it took for much longer,” he mentioned.
Due to the DNA take a look at, formal visible identification was not required. Nonetheless, Razeem went to see his son’s physique when it was transferred from the ambulance to al-Makassed Hospital in East Jerusalem, from the place the funeral procession departed.
He described seeing accidents on all the proper facet of his son’s physique, however couldn’t say extra about what occurred to him.
“I requested the individual dealing with the physique earlier than the burial, ‘Is he intact?’ They mentioned sure. We buried him, associates got here, and we sat for 3 days,” Razeem mentioned via tears, describing the mourning interval in Islam.
What the household is aware of of that day
Every other particulars of his son’s dying that Razeem is aware of in the present day, he discovered from the media.
The stays of the house of Pessi Cohen, the place Hamas held 15 hostages on October 7, 2023, in Kibbutz Be’eri, seen on November 19, 2023. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
Fluent in Hebrew, Razeem adopted reviews in Hebrew information shops within the months after the bloodbath. The one two survivors from the hostage standoff in Cohen’s home in Kibbutz Be’eri — Yasmin Porat and Hadas Dagan — had been interviewed and spoke about Suhaib.
They recounted how Suhaib had served as a translator between the opposite hostages and the terrorists, and it was doubtless because of this that he was kidnapped on the Nova pageant and brought to the Kibbutz Be’eri home.
The incident in Kibbutz Be’eri was one among three hostage standoffs between terrorists and Israeli forces throughout the October 7 onslaught. The others happened at a house in Ofakim and on the Sderot police station.
“[Suhaib] mentioned to me, ‘Have a look at me, I’m from East Jerusalem. We [meaning the terrorists] wish to take you to Gaza,’” Porat told Israel’s Channel 12 in a joint interview with Dagan.
In line with Dagan, “At that second there was unease across the desk… after which the translator mentioned, ‘Settle down, relax, they’re solely taking you to the Erez Crossing and to Gaza, and tomorrow night time you’ll be house.’”
Porat, who survived as a result of she was taken from the home as a human protect by a surrendering terrorist, advised Haaretz: “I don’t know why they selected me. There was some kind of connection between me and Suhaib. At first, he calmed me and mentioned they might take us each to the Erez Crossing. When the terrorists took a telephone to talk to the police, Suhaib turned to me, and that’s the way it started.”
Each survivors described how, late Saturday afternoon, after lengthy hours of tried negotiations between IDF and police forces outdoors the home and the terrorists inside, the IDF started shelling the constructing.
An IDF probe printed final yr additionally decided that Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram, by then in Kibbutz Be’eri however not on the home itself, had approved the usage of gentle tank shells to be fired at and close to the house beginning at 5:00 p.m. to stress the terrorists to give up.
In line with the probe, one hostage was killed by the shelling. The causes of dying of the opposite hostages weren’t definitively recognized, although many had been apparently killed by gunfire — probably by the terrorists.
Mohammed Razeem, father of Suhaib Razem, who was murdered on October 7, 2023, photographed at his house in Beit Hanina, Jerusalem, October 1, 2025. (Nurit Yohanan/ The Occasions of Israel).
Past their uncommon interviews with the media, Razeem defined that the household doesn’t converse in regards to the circumstances of Suhaib’s dying outdoors their instant circle. Whenever you enter the house, Suhaib’s reminiscence is in every single place, however the particulars — even that he was murdered on October 7 — are saved throughout the household.
When requested in the event that they ever discuss it with neighbors or acquaintances in East Jerusalem, Razeem replied: “We haven’t spoken to anybody about what occurred. We don’t need individuals saying issues later… What for, to open wounds? Everybody is aware of he died within the battle. However what occurred, and the place he died — we don’t wish to share. That’s throughout the household, between us, the kids and the uncles. With anybody else, we don’t discuss. It’s our secret.”
A religious Muslim, Razeem struggled when requested whether or not the truth that his son was killed by fellow Muslims made the loss tougher to bear.
“That’s what occurred,” he mentioned. “We don’t oppose God. That is how God decreed it. Arab Muslims don’t resist destiny. Why? That’s with God.”
An additional problem
Razeem’s each day life is now weighed down by one other problem widespread in East Jerusalem: the specter of house demolition. His home, constructed 22 years in the past, was as soon as below a demolition order that was canceled, Razeem mentioned, however two years in the past, the municipality reissued an order saying the house was constructed illegally.
Since then, he has twice met with Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion, who referred him to town’s authorized advisers. They didn’t cancel the order, however postponed it by two years. Within the meantime, Razeem is supposed to pay a advantageous of NIS 1,000 ($300) every month for unauthorized development.
Constructing legally in Israel requires zoning plans, however East Jerusalem’s neighborhood grasp plans date again to the Nineteen Eighties and Nineteen Nineties and haven’t been up to date to fulfill the wants of a rising inhabitants. Retroactively legalizing development is usually an advanced course of, depending on land standing and authorities approval.
“If I would like something now, it’s that they remedy this,” Razeem mentioned.
He added that every so often, teams such because the Nova victims group and associations commemorating terror victims attain out to him.
“They’re advantageous, however I don’t wish to contain them in what’s occurring,” he mentioned.
The Jerusalem Municipality mentioned in response to a question from The Occasions of Israel: “Out of respect for the unlucky circumstances and the tragedy that occurred, and on the request of the mayor, the municipal prosecutor met a number of occasions with Mr. Mohammed Razeem, father of the sufferer of the Nova pageant, greater than a yr in the past.
“As a part of the help efforts, the household was granted reduction in a number of funds and in curiosity on arrears for nonpayment of development violation fines,” it continued, including that efforts had been being made to rectify the state of affairs and stop the constructing’s demolition amid a “advanced” property dispute between Razeem and third events.
Photographs of Suhaib Razeem, who was murdered on October 7, 2023, are displayed on the entrance to his household’s house in Beit Hanina, East Jerusalem. (Nurit Yohanan/ The Occasions of Israel)
his photos at night time
Suhaib by no means had the prospect to marry or have kids.
“He hadn’t even began to construct his life,” Razeem mentioned.
Nonetheless, he left behind a big household — eight siblings and lots of nieces and nephews. The household continues to develop after his dying. Throughout our interview, one among his sisters went into labor with what would have been Suhaib’s twenty first niece or nephew.
“I miss him in so many issues. All his associates had been married, so he would sit right here with me at house. He taken care of his nieces and nephews. He purchased earrings for his niece, items for the children, threw them little events,” Razeem recalled, displaying photographs of Suhaib organizing household meals.
On the similar time, Razeem described how he by no means restricted Suhaib in his life — maybe an indication of being one of many youthful kids, after seven older brothers and sisters.
“He flew to Turkey, to Thailand. I by no means requested him, ‘The place are you, the place are you going?’ I didn’t tie him down; I didn’t need him to really feel sure,” Razeem mentioned.
He admitted that final yr, as October 7 approached, the grief hit him tougher.
This yr, the household held a memorial service for Suhaib forward of the anniversary date.
“Final week, his mom made a memorial for him. She mentioned, ‘I don’t wish to do it on the 7, I wish to do it individually.’ She invited her associates and neighbors, cooked meals. We don’t neglect him. At night time, I sit, open my telephone, and take a look at his photos, those I confirmed you,” Razeem mentioned.
All through the dialog, Razeem repeated that regardless of the passage of time, he nonetheless can’t grasp — and will by no means absolutely settle for — the lack of his son.
“I nonetheless don’t perceive what occurred. I can’t make sense of how this catastrophe occurred,” he mentioned. “My thoughts can’t take it in. It’s like a dream, and I haven’t woken up from it but.”
