Awni Eldous
عوني الدوس
Twelve-year-old who dreamed of YouTube fame · c. 2011–2023 · Gaza City
Awni Eldous, a 12-year-old who ran a small gaming channel and dreamed of reaching a million subscribers, was among 15 people — seven of them children — killed in an Israeli airstrike on a residential building in Gaza City in the war's first hours, the BBC and Haaretz reported.
Awni Eldous was a 12-year-old from Gaza City, nicknamed “the Engineer” by his family for his fascination with computers and gaming. In August 2022 he opened a YouTube channel, introducing himself with a wide smile: “I am a Palestinian from Gaza, aged 12 years old. The aim of this channel is to reach 100,000 subscribers, or 500,000 — or one million. Thank you for 1,000 subscribers.”
On October 7, 2023 — hours after Hamas’s attack on Israel opened the war — an Israeli airstrike hit a residential building in Gaza City, killing 15 people, among them seven children, Haaretz reported. Awni was one of the dead, along with members of his family, making him one of the first Palestinian children killed in the war, as the BBC documented.
After his death, his story spread worldwide: people subscribed to his channel in tribute, carrying it past the one-million-subscriber mark he had dreamed of, and his introductory video was viewed millions of times. His aunt told the BBC the family had wanted the world to remember him not as a number but as a boy with ambitions.
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His channel, which had about 1,000 subscribers when he died, passed one million after his death as people worldwide moved to fulfill his stated dream.