GAZA CITY, May 6 (IslamOnline.net & Al-Quds Press) - Words failed famed Palestinian caricaturist Omaya Goha after the martyrdom of her husband Rami Khedr in the battle of al-Shajaiyain, in Gaza City.

With a broken heart she could not do anything to lament her slain husband but grab her paintbrush and draw his face in her tear-soaking eye with a heart-shaped drop of blood rolling down her cheeks.

The 27-year-old Khedr was a field leader of Ezziudin al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas.

He was killed on Thursday, May 1, when Israeli occupation forces thrust into al-Shajaiya district, east of Gaza City.

"Although I expected that my husband would be a martyr at any time, I was bereaved and shocked when I knew he was killed. I did not believe it until I went myself to the hospital…He looked as he was sound asleep. Only then I realized that my husband won martyrdom," said Goha.

"I had this strong feeling that he would win martyrdom…He used to tell me 'when I become a martyr, I expect you will draw a wonderful portrait to me'."

Everyone was wondering how such a sensitive and heart-broken caricaturist would express her grief at the passing-away of her loved husband.

The third day after his death, she came up with the long-awaited portrait.

She drew the face of Khedr in her pupil with a heart-shaped drop of blood rolling down her cheeks.

"It meant that my eyes did not shed tears but blood…I put him in my eyes and shed blood instead of tears," Goha said.

"This portrait spoke louder when words failed me…I wanted to pay tribute to my husband by writing an article, but unfortunately speech was poor and breath unable to express my grief and pain. I used my paintbrush to speak my heart out.

"The colors I used and this black halo around the eye were all reflective of my gloomy mood. The only bright thing in the portrait was my husband's face making its way through a sea of blood running down my cheeks," she said.

She stressed that the portrait came as an appreciation for her late husband, who helped her come up with new ideas to her paintings.

Goha also said she will organize an exhibition to display the paintings envisioned by her beloved husband.

Asked whether or not she would change the key symbol printed at the end of her portraits, she said that she could not change this symbol.

"It is the brainchild of my husband and he told me to keep it printed at my paintings," she explained.

Goha also told the martyrdom story of her brave-hearted husband.

"At the night of the Israeli incursion into al-Shagaiya, Khedr could not sleep. As the Israelis tightened their blockade on his hometown, he dressed himself in a military uniform of Ezzudin al-Qassam and took my hands in his and told me tenderly 'please forgive if I ever came hard on you'.

"I told him where would you go?

"He said 'To al-Shajaiya.' Then I begged him not to risk his life and he said: 'Do not worry at all, I just want to know what is going on there'."

She recalled he was concealing a gun in his clothes to reassure me.

Goha further said Khedr was dying for martyrdom and did not want to be killed in an Israeli "target" assassination.