At the age of eight, Mariam Wahid Al-Abadleh creates bead accessories with assistance from her mother. She aims to achieve recognition and sell her products after leaving Gaza with her mother and grandfather for his medical treatment.
Mariam fell in love with beads after her father gave her a box of them when she finished her first-grade exams in Gaza. This hobby became a way for her to focus on something and not be too scared during bombings, according to her mother, Alaa Al-Jabour.
Mariam’s mother did not know that her daughter’s hobby, which she wanted to pursue upon arriving in Egypt, would become the key to her fame through the page she created to showcase Mariam’s bead accessories.
Mariam said, “I want to become famous, sell my work, earn money, and make up for everything we lost when our house was bombed in Gaza.”
Mariam also dreams of becoming an engineer so she can rebuild what was destroyed in her land, where the health authorities in Gaza reported the number of deaths to be over 39,000.
The war started on October 7 when Hamas, the Palestinian militant group ruling Gaza, killed 1,200 people in Israel, according to Israeli tallies, and took another 250 or so to hold as hostages in Gaza, one of the most crowded places on earth.