Layan, 19, trying to graduate from high school

Palestine has a nationwide high school graduation test known as tawjihi. It was cancelled for Gaza in 2024 but Palestine education officials announced in July that the 2025 tests would go forward.

But they quickly ran into big problems because the internet keeps breaking down. Students couldn’t download the exam application, and those who got past that hurdle often couldn’t upload their answers.

Even while their neighborhoods were being shelled, however, there were students trying to take the test and get their diplomas.

One of them was 19-year-old Layan in Gaza City. Her father, Husam, says her effort to complete her studies is her lifeline. "It's the only thing that keeps her mind off death," Husam said. "It gives her hope that she can escape this life. She's putting all of her efforts to secure a scholarship abroad hoping that she would be able to travel."

More at Haaretz

The Abu Teir family: Mother and father, brother and sister, grandmother, three cousins, and an aunt killed

The Abu Teir family: Mother and father, brother and sister, grandmother, three cousins, and an aunt killed

The Abu Teir family thought the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas early this year would give them a chance to put their lives back together. But on March 18, Israel broke the agreement, killing more than 400 people that night. 

Among the dead were eight members of the Teir family: Huda Abu Teir, 19, who was studying to become a nurse; her mother, Asmaa; her father, Mohammed; her brother, Addullah; three cousins and an aunt, all killed when the Israeli military bombed their home.

More at The New York Times

Sharaf Odeh: As bombs fall, he studies for his Master’s Degree

There’s famine and bombing in Gaza City, but that hasn’t kept Sharaf Odeh, 26, from studying for his Master’s Degree in Digital Business Administration. 

All of Gaza’s universities have been destroyed or heavily damaged by Israeli bombs, but Odeh is enrolled in several online courses. Solar panels power his computer.

The degree, he believes, will give him a better future. 

More at Haaretz

Karam al-Ghussain, 9, and Lulu, 10, little brother and big sister, waiting for water when an Israeli strike hit the water distribution

Karam al-Ghussain, 9, and Lulu, 10, brother and sister, were waiting beside a water distribution station, holding jerry cans and buckets, when it was bombed on Saturday, July 13.

The Guardian reported:
Lulu’s real name was Lana but her parents rarely used it because her nickname, which means pearl, captured the gentle shine she brought to family life. “She had such a joyful personality, and a heart full of kindness,” Heba (her mother) said.

Karam was smart, always top of his class until Israeli attacks shut down Gaza’s schools, generous and mature beyond his years. His dad, Ashraf al-Ghussain, called him “abu sharik” or “my partner”, because he seemed “like a man in spirit”.

But he was also enough of a child to be obsessed by a remote-controlled car that he begged his mother to buy. She regrets telling him they needed to save money for food. “I wish I had spent everything I had to buy it for him so he could have played with it before he died.”

More at The Guardian

Mariam Sabbah, 9, injured in an Israeli strike, needs reconstructive surgery in the US but can’t get it because of the Trump travel ban

Mariam Sabbah had been fast asleep, huddled under a blanket with her siblings, when an Israeli missile tore through her home in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, in the early hours of 1 March.

The missile narrowly missed the sleeping children but as the terrified nine-year-old ran to her parents, a second one hit. “I saw her coming towards me but suddenly there was another explosion and she vanished into the smoke,” says her mother, Fatma Salman.

The parents searched desperately for their children and found Mariam lying unconscious in a pool of blood; her left arm was ripped off, shards of shrapnel had pierced through her small body, and she was bleeding heavily from her abdomen.

Besides blowing off her arm, the blast left Mariam with severe abdominal and pelvic injuries from shrapnel tearing through her bladder, uterus, and bowel.

“Mariam needs specialised paediatric reconstructive surgery,” says Dr Mohammed Tahir, a British surgeon who treated Mariam while volunteering at al-Aqsa hospital in Gaza. “Her arm amputation is also very high and requires limb lengthening and specialist prosthesis. Without this, it will be very difficult for her to live a normal life.”

Mariam and her family secured the offer of surgical care from a specialist team in Ohio, and the little girl waited two months to be given permission from Cogat to leave Gaza, by which time her condition had deteriorated. She was finally evacuated to Egypt but was then stuck for months waiting for her US travel documents to be processed. 

President Trump has blocked medical evacuation for children on the grounds that their accompanying parents are security risks.

More at The Guardian

Raja: Shortly before he died, he caught a fish for his English teacher

Gaza writer Hend Salama Abo Helow reports on education in Gaza in an article in Truthout. 

One of the students she describes was named Raja. His English teacher was Lamia Hatem Othman. Helow writes: “Raja walked long distances to attend her lessons. Fishing was his only escape, despite Israel’s severe restrictions on the sea. Each time, he returned with one or two fish, which he proudly shared with classmates. 

“One day he told her: ‘The next fish will be for you, Mrs. Lamia.’ But Raja never came back. Later, Othman found his name among those who were killed. His sister confirmed, in a broken voice: ‘He loved you a lot. The fish he caught for you is still here, in a decorated plastic bag.’” 

More at Truthout

Yousef al-Mashharawi, father of three with nowhere to go

Yousef al-Mashharawi is a 32-year-old photographer and film-maker with two daughters and a son sheltering with family in the Nasser district of Gaza City.

He knows the risks of remaining are rising steeply. “The fighter jets and helicopters do not stop firing. Last night was terrifying,” Mashharawi said. “I haven’t exactly ‘decided’ to stay, but the truth is, I have nowhere else to go,” he said. The family was displaced to southern Gaza earlier in the war and he has no wish to go back.

“The army claimed it was a ‘humanitarian zone’, but that was completely false. It was the opposite. There were always strikes happening there, and they are still happening,” he said.

More at The Guardian

Karam, 12, and his sister Judy, 10, killed by a shell that hit their home in Gaza City

The Israeli move to fully occupy Gaza City is in the news, but earlier attacks also devastated families. 

On July 5, a shell hit the home of 12-year-old Karam and 10-year Judy in the city’s al Zeitoun neighborhood, killing them both. 

Their eight-year-old sister, Retal, was seriously injured. Retal has undergone nine abdominal surgeries since then, but they haven't relieved her suffering, UNICEF USA reports.  

For two months now, Retal has been waiting for Israeli authorities to allow her to be medically evacuated so she can receive the treatment she needs. 

More at UNICEF USA

Enas, 21, still studying computer engineering, but feels her dreams are slipping away

Enas, a 21-year-old computer systems engineering student from Rafah, had just completed her second year at Al-Azhar University when the war began. Displaced to Al-Mawasi, near Khan Yunis, she’s still studying, but she battles despair. 

"Since our last displacement, my academic situation has been very bad. I don't think I'll register for another semester," she admitted. Before the war, she had pictured herself already working in her field. "I used to study because I loved it. I wanted to graduate, work and even work while studying. Now I'm just barely getting by. I don't have the same goals or hope as before."

Her field depends on reliable internet and long hours on a laptop – luxuries she no longer has. "The internet here is so weak, and the electricity is unstable. Sometimes it cuts during an exam, and I manage to reconnect and finish. Other times, I lose the exam completely."

Her grades have slipped, but the hardest loss is personal. Early in the war, she lost her closest friend and study partner – one of the more than 15,000 schoolchildren killed since the war began, according to UNICEF. 

"I don't like remembering how I felt when she was killed," Enas said. "Even now, whenever I submit an assignment or finish a project, I miss her and wish she were here."

More at Haaretz

Mohammed Ramez Al-Sultan, 14, soccer player, killed in an air strike on his home along with 14 other family members

Mohammed Ramez Al-Sultan was a 14-year-old soccer player who had graduated from the Al-Hilal Club FIFA-accredited academy and lived in the northern part of Gaza City. The Palestinian Football Association announced Monday that he had been killed in an Israeli airstrike on his home, along with his father and 13 other family members.

A youth player for Al-Hilal, Abu Al-Amaren, was shot dead by Israeli forces on September 6 while waiting for humanitarian aid in northern Gaza.

More at Anadolu Ajansı, a Turkish state-run news agency

Fatima al-Zahra Sahweil, displaced 19 times, refused to move again

Fatima al-Zahra Sahwell, a 40-year-old mother of four children sheltering in Gaza City, says she won’t obey Israeli orders to leave, despite frequent bombings near her.

The designated escape route is jammed, she doesn’t have the money to buy a tent, and she doesn’t believe the areas where Israel wants her to go are safer than where she is. “There is not a single day without bombings and deaths in the south, even in the so-called humanitarian zones that the army declared. So, would I just be running from death to death?”

Sahwell said she has already moved her family 19 times since the war began.

More at The Guardian

Dr. Musa Khafajeh, a top Gaza gynecologist, killed by an Israeli missile fired at his tent

An Israel Air Force jet fired a missile at a tent in northwest Khan Yunis on Saturday, July 5. At least four men were killed in the strike: Dr. Musa Khafajeh, a top gynecologist in Gaza, and three of his children.

More at Haaretz

Sarah al-Barsh, 10, two arms amputated above the elbow, father killed

"My father and I were walking home," says 10-year-old Sara al-Barsh. “Suddenly the house we were passing by was bombed. I fainted for about 15 minutes, then I woke up. When I woke up, I couldn't find my hands. I started screaming, 'Dad, Dad' – but he didn't respond."

Sara’s father was killed. She was taken to hospitals where her arms had to be amputated above the elbow. She hasn't had any rehab, so she has been doing it herself as best she can in her new home – a tent in Gaza City's Sheikh Radwan neighborhood. She has been painting with her feet.

"Before the injury, I lived a normal life, like any other child with two hands," she says. "I used to eat, drink, play and comb my hair – now I can't do anything on my own."

Her mother, Amani al-Barsh, hopes she can get out of Gaza and be fitted with prosthetic arms. "She used to dream of becoming a doctor or an engineer,” says her mother. “Today, after the amputations, she insists on being a pediatrician to help children.” 

More at Haaretz

Fatma Hassouna, 25, photojournalist, killed in an airstrike along with six other members of her family

Fatma Hassouna, 25, a photojournalist who is the focus of a new documentary about life in Gaza, was killed April 16 by an Israeli airstrike along with six other members of her family.

The day before she was killed, it was announced that the documentary had been accepted for screening at a French independent film festival. 

More at The Guardian

Alma, 12: “"The war is hard and long, but we try to live.”

Alma, 12 years old, loves to write. With school closed, she creates her own homework, writing about life in the family's half-destroyed home in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. "The war is hard and long, but we try to live," she says.

Alma is one of the Gaza residents interviewed by the Israeli liberal Zionist newspaper Haaretz for a report published July 21.

"I've been helping my mother at home – fetching water, lighting a fire,” she told them. “I've also been helping her with my brother Wissam, who's 4. I've been singing him lullabies before he goes to sleep. I've been telling him stories from what I remember from school."

Life in her damaged home is better than in the tents the family lived in when they had to flee to other parts of Gaza. "Life in the tent is hard because of the sand, the mosquitoes, the flies.

"At night it's hard to sleep because you hear people in other tents. Also, all of us were in one tent. In the winter the rain leaks in, so my parents and I took turns holding the tarps so that water wouldn't leak in."

Her life now is a far cry from the one she had before the war. "I miss my friends. I'd like to meet with them like we used to; I want to know that they're all right," Alma says.

She misses her friends, who are scattered through Gaza. She tries to keep up using her mother’s phone. One friend lost her father and mother. Another friend was wounded. 

She’s scared of the Israeli bombs, but tries not to show it. "I've been talking to my sister, who's two years younger than me, about what we wish we could eat. She wants chocolate cake, while I'd like waffles with maple syrup and vanilla ice cream.”

More at Haaretz

Dr. Hamdi al-Najjar and nine of his children, killed in a strike on their home

Nine children of Drs. Hamdi and Alaa al-Najjar died in an Israeli airstrike on their apartment in Khan Younis on Friday, May 23. Hamdi al-Najjar was critically wounded and died later of his injuries. All the children were under 12.

The two doctors both worked at Nasser Hospital in the same city. Hamdi had just driven his wife to work and returned home. The two had one more child, Adam, 11, who was also seriously hurt but survived.

More at Haaretz

Ibrahim, 48, father of four: “My children have no future.”

"I go through some very hard moments as a father," Ibrahim says about his children. "One that left a mark on me was when I was hugging them during shelling, not knowing if we would come out alive. I've been facing a daily dilemma: whether to send one of the children to get water while I'm trying to get food." 

"I'm an educated man, and what's most painful is that I now know for sure that my children have no future," Ibrahim says. 

Ibrahim is one of the Gaza residents profiled by Haaretz on July 21. They conducted all their interviews by phone and video call. 

More at Haaretz

Dr. Marwan Al-Sultan, hospital director, killed by a missile attack on his apartment

Dr. Marwan Al-Sultan, cardiologist and director of the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahia, was killed July 2 by an Israeli missile attack on his apartment. 

His wife, sister, daughter, and son-in-law were also killed. 

Dr. Al-Sultan was the last hospital director in northern Gaza who had not been killed or arrested.

More at Haaretz

Mohammed al-Darbi, 11: “We’re eating sand instead of bread.”

Elevn-year-old Mohammed al-Darbi is one of the children struggling to survive in Gaza that the Israeli newspaper Haaretz spotlighted in a report published. Haaretz said he appeared in a video recorded around July 1 on al-Rashid Street in Gaza City. 

Al-Darbi appears near an aid delivery center. "There is no flour in Gaza City," he says. "Every day they tell us that there are aid trucks; we go there and come back with nothing.

"There is no food, have pity on us. We're eating sand instead of bread."

Haaretz said Al-Darbi is one of the countless children crowding around when the aid center is opened. 

More at Haaretz

Hussam Al Loulou, 58, Doctors Without Borders watchman

Hussam Al Loulou, a Doctors Without Borders watchman working at their urgent care unit in Khan Younis, was killed in a strike on the morning of April 1, 2025, southwest of Deir al-Balah, central Gaza. His wife and 28-year-old daughter were also killed. 

Loulou was 58 years old. He is survived by two sons.

More at Doctors Without Borders