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

Fadi and Abeer Sobh and their children

In video interviews in Gaza, Fadi Sobh and his wife, Abeer describe their days, trying to get food and clean water to keep their family alive. They have four children: 9-month-old Hala, 7-year-old Malak, 9-year-old Mohammed, and 10-year-old Youssef.

Fadi was shot in the leg scrambling to get food at a border crossing so he can’t go anymore. Abeer goes, but often fails to get any food. Then she begs from those who are more lucky: “You survived death thanks to God, please give me anything,” she tells them. She says many do answer her plea and give her a little. But often, the family goes to bed hungry.

More at Associated Press

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

Kamel Qoraan and Momen Abu Etayya, tried to get food airdropped into the sea

The Associated Press filmed Gazans trying to retrieve air-dropped aid packages that fell into the Mediterranean. Some of it was still usable but much of it was ruined by the seawater.

Kamal Qoraan: “The flour bag was drenched with water. Either you open the crossings for us, for aid to enter, or don’t drop aid like that. This is humiliation, not aid.”

Momen Abuy Etayya: "When I came to try and fetch the aid in the sea, I almost drowned. I only did that for my boy as he made me swear to bring him something to eat. I threw myself in the ocean to death just to bring him something. I was only able to bring him three biscuit packets."

More at Associated Press

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

Refaat Ibrahim, writer

Refaat Ibrahim, a writer born in Gaza, wrote in Al Jazeera about his first attempt to get food from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) distribution site:

“I went with a faint hope of getting some food for my family. What we encountered bore no trace of humanity. The scene … resembled a battlefield.

“Israeli military vehicles stood alongside GHF trucks, with a massive barrier in front of them. Occupation soldiers were stationed on elevated positions, their weapons pointed directly at the Palestinian civilians gathering.

“At one point, two trucks arrived and dumped the aid on the ground in a degrading manner. Anyone who tried to approach was met with gunfire from the Israeli soldiers. Eventually, an Israeli soldier announced over a loudspeaker, “Now you can get the aid,” and the crowd rushed towards the boxes.

“Men shoved and pushed, children cried, and women trembled from fear and exhaustion. Just a small minority managed to lay their hands on some aid. Some tried to steal from those who had made it. The vast majority – myself included – went back home empty-handed.”

Last April, Ibrahim wrote about the death of educational justice in Gaza. And in a column from last January, Ibrahim described how repeated displacements during the war have turned him into a stranger in his own country.

More at Al Jazeera

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.

Why official aid sites have become a last resort: Three stories from the Times of Israel

For months, Israeli media have mostly avoided covering the starvation in Gaza. But recently, there has been some movement, as this article in the centrist Times of Israel demonstrates.

Khaldun Hamad, 30, has lost nearly 30 pounds since the war started, eating between one and two meals a day for the past several months. Like others, he has tried to raise money online to buy food on the black market. But the exorbitant prices forced him to set out for the Zikim crossing on Thursday, August 7, hoping to bring food back for his wife and mother, who was wounded by Israeli gunfire while sitting outside their test earlier in the war.

Hamad tells how he joined a crowd of 10,000 other hungry people near Zikim, but Israeli troops started shooting at them. Hamad and another person carried a wounded man a mile until they found a tuk-tuk driver who would take him to a hospital.

Hamad returned to the crossing point where he found the crowd racing toward four food trucks despite continuing gunfire. He grabbed a bag of flour but was knocked down and lost it.

The next day he came back and finally managed to come home with flour.

“I don’t want to die in silence,” Hamad told the Times. “I want the people [to] know [about] our suffering. I want to feel that there [is] some humanity in this world [and that] there are people who do not support collective punishment.”

Asked about the video of Israeli hostage Evyatar David released recently by Hamas, which shows David emaciated and forced to dig what could become his own grave, Hamad responded, “I feel sorry for him and sorry for us. We don’t want them to suffer, and we don’t want to suffer ourselves.”

The Times also tells the stories of two other Gazans struggling to stay alive and feed their families.

More at The Times of Israel

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

Nada Almadhoun, an intern in the obstetrics emergency department of a Gaza City hospital, describes one shift

Excerpt:

“At 6am, as dawn breaks on the morning of my shift, we welcome a new baby born to a mother from the Jabalia camp in northern Gaza, an area surrounded by Israeli soldiers and tanks. As the first rays of sunlight pierce the delivery room, the mother cries happy tears, her face flushed as she hugs her baby girl.”

More at Al Jazeera

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

Three Gazans say they will refuse to evacuate if the Israeli army comes back into Gaza City

The Associated Press asked Gaza City residents to respond to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement that the Israeli army will re-occupy the city. All three of those quoted said they would not leave.

“What does (Israel) want from us? ... There is nothing here to occupy. There is no life here. I have to walk every day for more than 15 minutes to get drinking water.” — Umm Youssef

“I have no intention to leave my home, I will die here.” — Kamel Abu Nahel.

“This is our land, there is no other place for us to go. We are not surrendering ... We were born here, and here we die.” — Ismail Zaydah

More at Associated Press

Suleiman al-Obeid, soccer star, killed waiting for food aid

Suleiman al-Obeid, 41, a star soccer player with the Palestinian national team, was killed August 6 in an Israeli attack on aid seekers near an aid distribution center in southern Gaza, according to the Palestinian football association.

He leaves behind a wife and five children.

The European soccer teams association UEFA posted a photo and a tribute to him on X: “Farewell to Suleiman al-Obeid, the 'Palestinian Pelé'. A talent who gave hope to countless children, even in the darkest of times.”

Liverpool soccer player Mohamed Salah, who is from Egypt, posted, “Can you tell us how he died, where, and why?

More at Al Jazeera

Ehab Fasfous, 52: “They’ve deprived us of so much that now we’re behaving like animals.”

Much of the little aid that comes into Gaza is grabbed off the trucks by hungry Gazans before it can be distributed in an orderly way. Some is taken by armed gangs. The United Nations says hundreds of people have been killed trying to get aid directly from the trucks, mostly by Israeli soldiers.

On Wednesday, Ehab Fasfous, 52, a resident of the southern Gazan city of Khan Younis, inched toward one of the routes that aid trucks use in Gaza, aware, he said, that Israeli soldiers could open fire if he ventured too close. He shared a series of videos of the mayhem he saw next: hundreds, perhaps thousands of people closing in on the trucks from every direction.

At one point in the videos, which he said he took, a man menaces another person with a knife near a bag of flour.

Mr. Fasfous went home empty-handed.

“They’ve deprived us of so much that now we’re behaving like animals,” he said.

More at The New York Times

Ahmed Alhasant, 41, diabetic, died of malnutrition

Ahmed Alhasant, 41, died on July 22. According to his brother, Yehia Alhasant, he "passed away peacefully" at his home in the city of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.

Ahmed was particularly vulnerable to food deprivation than because he was diabetic.

“Day after day, he was getting more and more poorly," said his brother. He said Ahmed started to become unwell after Israel imposed a blockade of aid into Gaza in March. Since May, Israel has been allowing some aid into the territory, but aid groups say it is nowhere near enough.

For three months, Ahmed ate only bits of bread and occasionally canned food, Yehia said. His weight plummeted from nearly 180 pounds to less than 80, and his health rapidly deteriorated. "His speech was slurred and sometimes we could hardly understand him," Yehia said.

The family took him to a hospital, but according to Ahmed’s cousin Refaat Alhasant, the hospital staff told them, “He needs food, not medicines.”

More at BBC

Mohammed Imran, Ehab al-Helou, and Sabrine Mahmoud: three reactions to Netanyahu’s decision to occupy all of the Gaza strip

Mohammed Imran from Khan Younis said the change in terminology from “occupation” to “control” made little difference. “Replace the word ‘occupation’ with ‘control’ – the meaning and the result are the same: destruction and displacement,” he told the BBC. “We have nothing but God as long as those holding power in Gaza (Hamas) have lost their minds.”

Ehab al-Helou, activist and social media influencer: “I swear to God, Hamas leaders are living in a science fiction world. Have mercy on the people. Who are you to decide to sacrifice us?” he posted online.

Sabrine Mahmoud: “I will not leave my house. We will not live through displacement again. We left Gaza City for a whole year and endured the harshest humiliation in al-Mawasi. We will not repeat the mistake. Let them destroy the house over our heads – we will not leave.”

More at BBC

Sela Mahmoud, 8, killed in Israeli shelling of a camp for displaced persons

Her last words to her mother were: "I want to eat a whole bowl of lentils until I'm full."

On Monday night, July 21, Alaa Shehada set off trying to get food for her family at the Zikim aid point in northern Gaza, a couple of kilometers from the camp for displaced persons where she was staying with her four children.

She brought her 13-year-old daughter with her and left her three other children behind.

About 1:45am, Alaa says she heard shelling in the distance and immediately feared the worst. “I felt the strike in my heart,” she said. “My intuition as a mother told me this strike reached my kids.”

When she managed to reach one of her daughters by phone, she learned that eight-year-old Sela Mahmoud had been killed. "My heart was broken," says Alaa.

Her other two children at the camp were seriously injured and are in al-Shifa Hospital.

More at BBC

Kareem and Ayman, 12-year-old twin cousins of U.S. citizen Ghada Tafesh

Gaza-born, new U.S. citizen Ghada Tafesh used to swap recipes and photos of dinner spreads with her aunt Fairouz. Those days are gone. Her 12-year-old twin cousins look up at her from her phone with gaunt, exhausted faces. They have lost a quarter of their body weight.

Fairouz says it’s too dangerous to try to get food directly from the scarce aid trucks. They buy from street hawkers when they can — $20 for a tomato.

“I just hope that people in the United States would see Palestinians in Gaza as individuals rather than numbers,” says Ghada

More information: Washington Post

Abdullah Jendeia, aged 19, went to get food and didn’t come back

Abdullah Omar Jendeia, 19, was killed on Sunday, July 20, when he went out to find food, according to his sister Nadreen.

"He was impatient to go and fetch some food that day," she said. "I told him, 'Just eat the few lentils we have left,' but he refused."

She said Abdullah left the house about 4pm to walk more than 3.1 miles north to an aid truck that comes weekly, hoping to come back with flour to feed the family. He was with two of his brothers and some in-laws.

At about 11 that night, one of the brothers, Mahmoud, called Nadreen to tell her that while they were waiting by the aid truck Israeli soldiers had suddenly opened fire on them.

More at BBC

Dr. Ali Alhaj Salem, neo-natal intensive care specialist, Al-Helou Hospital, whose Instagram post struck a chord in Israel

Dr. Ali Alhaj Salem posted a short video on Instagram from inside his neo-natal intensive care unit in Al-Helou Hospital, showing the babies he is trying to care for.

Many were born prematurely because their mothers are malnourished, he said. The special formula for premature babies is “not available in our market,” he says in a matter-of-fact voice, but the hospital is making do with formula for full-term babies. Dr. Salem himself looks very thin.

Dr. Salem’s Instagram post moved Israeli designer Mushon Zer-Aviv, who wrote about it in the New York Times. Zer-Aviv’s own child was born three months prematurely and weighed less than two pounds. But all of human society had provided the specialist care, equipment, and supplies Zer-Aviv’s baby needed to survive and thrive. Not so today for Dr. Salem’s little patients born in Gaza.

More information at Instagram and the New York Times