Hussam al-Masri, 49, photojournalist

Hussam al-Masri, 49, was the first of five journalists killed by an Israeli tank at Nasser Hospital on August 25. Al-Masri was a photojournalist with Palestine TV and also a contractor for the Reuters news agency. 

He was operating a live video feed for Reuters showing the scene across Khan Younis from an external stairwell near the roof of Nasser Hospital when an Israeli tank fired at him. He had chosen that location because he thought it was the safest, according to a Reuters colleague. When rescuers and journalists rushed up the stairwell toward Masri, the tank fired a second time, killing four more journalists and many rescuers. 

Among the four journalists killed by the second strike was Mariam Dagga of the Associated Press. (See August 26 post.)

Masri's wife, Samaher, 39, has cancer and he had been trying to get her out of Gaza for treatment before he was killed. The couple had four children. Their house was destroyed and they were living in a tent. 

Masri was born and raised in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. He earned a diploma in journalism before starting work as a freelancer in 1998.

More at Reuters

Atef Abu Khater, 17, starved to death

Atef Abu Khater, 17, was a local sports champion according to his relatives. His weight had dropped from about 70 kilograms (154 pounds) to 25 kilograms (55 pounds) when he died on Saturday, August 30. They said he had no other health problems than lack of food. 

More at Al Jazeera

Hala Arafat, died while Israel blocked rescuers from a demolished building where she was trapped

Of the 13 people killed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City’s Tuffah neighborhood on July 14, only one is included in the Gaza health officials’ compilation of the more than 60,000 dead. That’s because hers was the only body recovered. 

According to a Washington Post report, emergency personnel and relatives said the Israeli military prevented rescue workers from reaching the site for roughly eight hours, targeting those who tried with drone strikes, as footage shared by Arafat’s family showed her trapped and begging for rescue. “I can’t take this for much longer,” she whimpered. “Save me.”

The Israeli military said the strike had targeted “several key Islamic Jihad terrorists” and claimed it had taken steps to mitigate the risk of harm to civilians. 

By the time rescue workers reached the site the next day and extracted Arafat, she and her 12 relatives were dead, according to a relative, Anas Arafat. Her body was dug out, but the other 12 were not. The uncounted victims still under the rubble, whose names and ages were provided by Anas, ranged in age from Layan, 5, to Mohamed, 73.

More at Washington Post

Tala Abu Ajwa, 10

Tala Abu Ajwa, age 10, was killed while wearing her pink inline skates.

Tala’s father said she loved her friends, parties and visiting family. But in her last days, he said, “she had become very afraid — terrified by the war, the sounds of bombing, missiles, and the constant presence of death around her.”

More information at Washington Post

Reem Badwan, 3, “soul of my soul,” said her grandfather. The following year, he was killed, too.

In a video seen around the world in November, 2023, Khaled Nabhan held up the lifeless body of his 3-year-old granddaughter, Reem, kissed her eyes and called her the “soul of my soul.”

She was killed in a strike alongside her brother, Tariq, 5, two of the 18,500 child victims whose names were published by the Washington Post.

According to Wikipedia, her grandfather was killed in December, 2024, by an Israeli tank.

More information at Washington Post

Mariam Dagga, 33, photo journalist, killed at a Gaza hospital along with 20 other people including four other journalists

Israeli troops fired on Nasser Hospital in Gaza August 15 and then fired again on journalists and rescue workers rushing to the scene. Among the dead were five journalists, including 33-year-old Mariam Dagga, a visual journalist who worked for The Associated Press.

The AP posted a selection of Mariam Dagga’s photos here, along with links to some of the stories that included her work. 

The Reuters news agency said one of its reporters was killed in the initial strike as he operated a live television shot on an upper floor of the hospital. 

According to the British newspaper The Guardian, it has become the norm for journalists working in Gaza to prepare their wills in case they are killed. In hers, Dagga left behind two sets of instructions: to her colleagues, do not cry at her funeral; to her 13-year-old son, Ghaith, make her proud.

More at The Associated Press and The Guardian

Rajab Hind, 6, appealed for help after relatives were killed around her

Hind spent her final hours trapped in a bullet-ridden car, surrounded by the bodies of six dead relatives, making desperate calls for help. For three hours, a Red Crescent operator stayed on the line, reciting the Quran and comforting her as an Israeli tank approached. “Come get me, quickly,” she pleaded.

The Red Crescent sent two paramedics in an ambulance to rescue her, after clearing the trip with the Israeli military, but the Red Crescent lost contact with the ambulance staff. Twelve days later, Hind and her family were found dead. So were the two paramedics sent to help them.

More information at Washington Post

Mohamed Kullab, 29, killed in an airstrike

Mohamed Kullab, 29, was in his tent in a camp for displaced persons when an Israeli airstrike killed him on Tuesday, July 22, between 5pm and 6pm.

His brother-in-law, Amar Ragaida said he had talked with Mohamed just a day earlier when they bumped into each other looking for aid. "He told me, 'don't go on your own, I will try and get you some flour',” said Amar. “The next day, he was dead.”

Amar found out several hours later when people called Mohamed’s sister to tell her.

Mohamed leaves behind a sister and a younger brother.

More information: BBC

Abdullah Abu Zerka, 4, died of starvation despite evacuation to Turkey

Abdullah Abu Zerka died in the Adana City Training and Research Hospital in Turkey despite 10 days of relentless effort by doctors to help him recover from severe malnutrition.

The staff are still working to save his six-month-old sister, Habiba, and they are cautiously optimistic that she will make it.

The evacuation to Turkiye came through a Turkish Foreign Ministry humanitarian programme, with Turkish officials working diplomatic channels to secure the family’s passage. But the process took weeks – time that Abdullah’s failing body couldn’t afford. “We arrived carrying children who were already ghosts of themselves,” said Hamed Abu Zerka, the children’s father.

Abdullah’s body was cremated in the Gulbahcesi neighbourhood cemetery in Adana

More at Al Jazeera

Ismail Abu Hatab, filmmaker and photojournalist

Ismail Abu Hatab, 34, was the founder of the Clight TV production company. Hatab worked with a range of media outlets and organized photo exhibitions highlighting life in Gaza.

On November 2, 2023, he was seriously injured in an Israeli airstrike that targeted his office on the 16th floor of Al-Ghifari Tower in Gaza City.

On June 30, he was killed in the Israeli airstrike on the beachfront Al-Baqa Cafe.

More at Channel 4 (British TV) and Committee to Protect Journalists

Abdullah Alhore, bodybuilding champion

An Israeli drone attack in Gaza’s Ashik Rudwan district on Saturday, August 2, killed three people and more according to Al Jazeera correspondent Hani Mahmoud. The dead included Abdullah Alhore, a fitness bodybuilder celebrity.

Mahmoud also reported a Red Crescent medical staff worker was killed in an Israeli attack on a Red Crescent facility associated with Nasser Hospital.

More at Al Jazeera

Malak Musleh, young woman boxer

Malak Musleh, 20, was a young boxer who was training to represent Palestine in international women’s boxing competitions.

On June 30, she went to the beachside Al-Baqa Cafe in Gaza to meet a good friend. They had had a falling out, and the friend arrived with a giant teddy bear as a peace offering. When an Israeli missile struck, the teddy bear survived. Malak and her friend were killed.

More at Channel 4 (British TV) and CGTN (Chinese government broadcaster)

Motasem al-Batta, his wife, and their baby daughter

An Israeli airstrike killed Motasem al-Batta, his wife, and their baby daughter on Saturday, August 16. They died in their tent in the crowded Muwasi area of Gaza.

“Two and a half months, what has she done?” neighbor Fathi Shubeir asked. “They are civilians in an area designated safe.”

More at PBS

Marah Abu Zuhri, 20, died in an Italian hospital after evacuation from Gaza

A young woman from Gaza who was evacuated to Italy for treatment while severely emaciated died in the University Hospital of Pisa on Friday, August 15, less than two days after arriving on a medical evacuation flight.

The hospital said the immediate cause of death was a heart attack. They said Zuhri had suffered severe loss of weight and muscle. 

Meanwhile, as of Saturday, August 16, the Gaza health ministry reported another 11 people had died for lack of food bringing the total to 250.

More at BBC

Oday al-Quraan, a nurse, crushed by a falling aid packet

Oday al-Quraan was hoping to get some of the aid he knew would be air-dropped on Gaza on Monday, August 4. But one of the packets landed on him and killed him.

“Like all the young men, Oday waited in the scorching sun for four hours,” said his cousin, Moatasem al-Quraan, from central Gaza. “But when the planes arrived, he couldn’t get out of the way in time.”

“We thank all the countries that have helped and are trying to help, but the only solution is to open the crossing and distribute supplies,” said Moatasem as he attended the funeral of his cousin Oday.

“My cousin went to bring a meal to feed his family and children, but returned to them dead.”

More at The Independent

Mira Tanboura, 6, shot in the heart by an Israeli sniper

On November 18, 2023, Saeed Tanboura and his six-year-old daughter, Mira, fleeing northern Gaza, were permitted to pass through an Israeli checkpoint on a road the Israeli army had designated as an evacuation route. After they had walked a little over a kilometer farther down the road, Mira was shot in the heart and died, with the bullet coming from an area where Israeli soldiers were stationed.

No fighting was going on at the time.

Mira’s was one of more than 160 cases of children shot in the war that were investigated and confirmed by the BBC, which broadcast their findings in a 15-minute documentary on August 2, 2025.

In many cases, the BBC concluded that Israeli soldiers shot the children despite no indication of a battle or a threat to the soldiers.

More at BBC

Mohamed Abdallah al-Majdalawi and his two-year-old daughter, Layan, shot by an Israeli sniper

Mohamed Abdallah al-Majdalaw and his two-year-old daughter, Layan, were shot to death on Hamid Street in Gaza City in late December, 2023. A video showing them lying on the street, dying, was broadcast by the Qatari Al-Araby news service. The BBC spent many months trying to track down what happened and how it happened, and finally broadcast their findings on August 2, 2025.

Layan’s was among more than 160 cases of children shot in Gaza that the BBC reported on that day.

In many instances, as in this one, the evidence points to individual Israeli marksmen shooting the children with no indication that the killing was part of a battle or in response to a threat to the Israelis.

More at BBC

Nader, 23, killed trying to get food for his family

Before the current war in Gaza began, Nader worked as a guard at an orphanage in the east of Khan Younis. That’s according to his friend, Rafaat Ibrahim, who wrote about him in Al Jazeera.

Ibrahim says Nader did more than guard the shelter. He cared for the children, helped them in their daily lives, and gave them a sense of safety. After his work at the orphanage was destroyed, he took on the responsibility of supporting his family and his relatives’ children.

“I would see him returning from aid sites covered in dust from head to toe, utterly exhausted, yet greeting me with a faint smile even when he did not manage to get anything,” says Ibrahim.

On July 19, Nader and Ibrahim’s 16-year-old cousin Khaled went to an aid distribution site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Nader never returned. Khaled came back wounded with shrapnel in his leg.

Israeli forces had opened fire and launched several shells at the people waiting for food. Most of those killed were in front. Nader was hit by three bullets, along with shrapnel from a shell.

Anas al-Sharif, 28, and four other Al Jazeera journalists

An Israeli air attack killed five journalists with the Al Jazeera news organization Sunday, August 10.

The five included Anas Al-Sharif, 28, a prominent on-air correspondent, reporter Mohammed Qreiqeh and cameramen Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa.

The five were in their tent outside the Shifa medical complex in Gaza City.

The strike also killed two other people and damaged part of the hospital.

The Israeli military said Al-Sharif “posed as a journalist” but was actually the head of a terrorist cell.

Al-Sharif had apparently prepared for the possibility that he would be killed. After his death, a message to his X account saying, from him saying, “This is my last will and testament. If these words of mine reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice.” The message concluded, “

More at the British newspaper The Independent

Muhammad Zakaria Eid, 15, killed by a falling aid pallet

Al Jazeera posted a video showing 15-year-old Muhammad Zakaria Eid who had been crushed to death by a falling pallet during an airdrop of humanitarian aid in Gaza on Saturday, August 9.

The video shows aid pallets landing fast and hard on the ground. It shows people gathering around the boy’s body and then the boy’s brother carries him away.

“Despite the famine and the hard conditions that we live in, my brother went to get aid that was dropped into the sea by planes. A box fell on him directly and he was martyred,” Eid’s brother says.

More at Al Jazeera