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

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

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

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

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

Abdullah Hammad, Doctors Without Borders hygienist, killed waiting for aid

Abdullah Hammad was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza on July 3 as they waited for aid trucks in Khan Younis, southern Gaza. Sixteen people were killed in the attack. Hammad had worked as a Doctors Without Borders hygienist at the Al-Mawasi clinic. 

He is survived by his sister Zainab and his two brothers, Karam and Bahaa, who also work for Doctors Without Borders. 

Aitor Zabalgogeazkoa, the Doctors Without Borders emergency coordinator in Gaza, said there may have been more than 16 killed but Israeli troops did not allow people to remove bodies from the scene. He said they ordered all those who were waiting for aid to leave.

More at Doctors Without Borders

“Voice of Hind Rajab” acclaimed at Venice Film Festival

The Voice of Hind Rajab, a film recreating the last hours of six-year-old Hind Rajab and the frantic effort to save her, won a standing ovation that lasted more than 20 minutes at the Venice Film Festival September 3.

Director Kaouther Ben Hania used Hind’s actual voice, recorded by the Palestinian Red Crescent over a period of three hours on January 29, 2024, as she begged for rescue, surrounded by her dead relatives after their car was attacked by Israeli forces at a gas station. 

The film does not portray the violence. It tells the story Hind from the perspective of the Red Crescent call center workers. They were able to get permission from the Israeli forces to send an ambulance to the site, but lost contact with both the girl and the two ambulance crew members. When the Israelis later withdrew, the girl and the ambulance crew were found dead. 

More at The Washington Post

Nine children of pediatrician Alaa al-Najjar, killed in an attack on her home May 24

An Israeli attack on the home of Dr. Alaa al-Najjar on Friday, May 24, killed nine of her 10 children and critically injured the tenth while she was at work.

Sidar, Luqman, Sadin, Reval, Ruslan, Jubran, Eve, Rakan and Yahya  – aged between seven months and 12 years – all died in the attack, Gaza’s Government Media Office said.

Al-Najjar is a pediatrician at Nasser Hospital, where her husband is receiving care after being critically injured in the attack.

More at Al Jazeera

Yaqeen Hammad, youngest influencer in Gaza, killed in an airstrike

Yaqeen Hammad, 11, was killed May 24 in an Israeli air attack. Yaqeen and her older brother, Mohamed Hammad, delivered food, toys and clothing to displaced families, Al Jazeera has reported.

She was also Gaza’s youngest influencer, offering practical survival tips for daily life under bombardment, such as advice on how to cook with improvised methods when there was no gas. In one social media post, Yaqeen wrote: “I try to bring a bit of joy to the other children so that they can forget the war.”

She had more than 100,000 followers.

More at the British Daily Mail and Al Jazeera

Ousamah, 22, eldest son of Sumayah Abu Qas

Sumayah Abu Qas, 45-year-old nurse, wife, and mother of six, told a researcher from B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization, about her family’s struggles to survive the war, losing their home, relocating over and over, running out of drinkable water and food.

Last June 19, desperate for food to feed the family, her oldest son, Ousamah, and her brother, Ahmad, finally went to an aid distribution site sponsored by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation despite reports of people being shot. Her son was killed there.

“At 11:00 P.M., my brother came back with Ousamah’s body,” she said. “He was covered in blood and dirt. Ahmad told us an Israeli tank had fired a shell at them and hit Ousamah in the back, killing him and five others while they were opening boxes of aid.”

More at B’Tselem

Fatima, 5 or 6, chose a song for her own funeral

At a press event on August 31, Game of Thrones star Liam Cunningham played a video of a little girl singing a song he said she had requested for her funeral. He said the girl, named Fatima, had been killed four days before. 

“What sort of a world have we slid into? What sort of a human hole have we found ourselves in when children, beautiful angels like that, five or six years old, are making their own funeral arrangements?” Cunningham asked.

The occasion was the launch of a flotilla of about 20 boats carrying aid for Gazans from Barcelona, Spain. The boats are being joined by others and are now about halfway to their destination. 

In the past, individual aid boats have been stopped by the Israeli navy.

More at MSN

Rim Zidan, 44, killed at a distribution site

Mirvat Zidan, 20, told a researcher for B’Tselem how her mother, Rim, was killed at an aid distribution site on June 3. It was about 3:30 am. Rim was holding the hand of her 12-year-old son, Ahmad. Mirvat was walking ahead when Israeli soldiers opened fire on the aid seekers. 

“I turned around and saw her lying on the ground. I thought she had fainted; I couldn’t imagine she’d been killed. I called to her, ‘Mom! Mom! Can you hear me?!’ People told me she’d been killed, but I kept begging her not to leave me. I held her hand and felt for her pulse. When I put my head on her chest, I could feel her heart still beating. I asked for someone to help me, but nobody could because the firing was incessant, and they shot anyone who lifted their head.”

Ahmad had fled when the shooting started. When Rim died, Mirvat searched for him and finally found him.

Mirvat said about 30 people were killed and 200 injured that night.

More at B’Tselem

Yamen a-Za’anin, 19, killed trying to help someone wounded by Israeli fire near a food distribution site

Yamen a-Za’anin, 19, killed trying to help someone wounded by Israeli fire near a food distribution site

Luai a-Za’anin, a 49-year-old father of four, told a researcher from the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem how one of his sons was killed when we went to a food distribution site. Luai was staying away from the sites because so many people were killed there, and he had forbidden anyone in his family to go. But on June 17, Yamen, 19, said he was going to the market to buy clothes for his sister’s engagement party planned for the next day. 

When Yamen didn’t return after two hours, Luai tried to contact him and learned he had been shot by Israeli forces at the distribution site when he tried to help another food-seeker who was wounded. Luai found him in the hospital morgue. 

More at B’Tselem

Zeinab, 5 months

On August 4, Israa Abu Halib, a 31-year-old mother, told the story of her family’s fate in the Gaza war to a field researcher for B’Tselem, a leading Israeli human rights organization.

Halib’s five-month-old baby daughter, Zeinab,  had died 11 days earlier. 

Zeinab was born healthy, but steadily and rapidly declined because her parents were not able to get enough food. 

More at B’Tselem

Mohammad Salama, 24, photojournalist

Mohammad Salama was one of the five journalists killed by an Israeli tank at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis on August 25. He was a 24-year-old photojournalist and cameraman with Al Jazeera.

Salama was born in Abasan al-Kabira, east of Khan Younis. He lost his mother in childhood and lived with his father and relatives. Salama studied at a vocational college, earning a diploma in photography. From a young age, he was passionate about photojournalism, taking courses and shadowing veteran journalists to hone his skills. He joined Al Jazeera in February, 2024. 

Last November – on his birthday – he was engaged to fellow journalist Hala Asfour. They hoped to hold a wedding once there was a truce or ceasefire.

Salama was the 10th Al Jazeera journalist killed in the Gaza war.

More at Al Jazeera

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