The office said in a statement that Al-Zaq was martyred after the occupation forces targeted his family's apartment on Al-Thawra Street in central Gaza City.
Yousef Al-Zaq has a touching story of struggle linked to his mother, the freed prisoner Fatima Al-Zaq. He was born inside Israeli occupation prisons in 2008, after his mother was arrested while pregnant with him while leaving the Gaza Strip for medical treatment in 2007.
In 2007, Israel arrested Fatima al-Zaq while she was leaving the Gaza Strip for medical treatment. She was pregnant with her son, Yousef, and gave birth to him in prison. The Palestinian woman hadn't expected to be pregnant at the time of her arrest, only to discover it inside an Israeli prison. Her husband and eight children were unable to share in the joy of expecting the child, who was later born behind bars, according to her previous statements.
Al-Zaq lived with her son, Youssef, in harsh conditions inside prison. She spent nearly two years raising him between bars, in a cramped cell lacking even the most basic necessities of life. She suffered from a lack of food and healthcare, and lacked any safe space to care for her newborn.
She was only allowed to leave the house with her hands cuffed, and she suffered medical neglect, while her child suffered repeated illnesses amid a lack of adequate healthcare, according to human rights organizations.
In 2008, Fatima al-Zaq and her child were released from Israeli prisons as part of a deal that freed 19 Palestinian female prisoners in exchange for Hamas handing over a videotape showing captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was released in the 2011 Wafa al-Ahrar deal in exchange for the release of approximately 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.
Since Saturday dawn, 39 Palestinians, including children and women, have been killed and dozens more injured in separate Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, including Al-Zaq.
With full American support, Israel has been committing genocide in Gaza since October 7, 2023, leaving more than 195,000 Palestinians dead or wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 10,000 missing, in addition to hundreds of thousands displaced.
