Khalid, physical therapist and dad

Khalid, 36, is a physical therapist practicing in northern Gaza and raising five children.

Khalid’s family is one of four that kept video diaries during the first year of the Gaza war for use in a BBC documentary, “One year of war in Gaza: Life, Death, and Hope.”

When the Israeli army orders everyone to relocate to the south, Khalid refuses to go. But he and his family are soon engulfed by the war. No doctors are available, so Khalid sews up wounds — without painkillers since there are none of those, either.

The house next door is destroyed. His children are terrified. They start playing games pretending they are rescuing bomb victims: “He’s bleeding everywhere! Call an ambulance!”

“I washed her so we can operate on her,” says a child, playing with a doll. These are games children should not be playing says Khalid.

“Every night before we go to sleep, we say goodbye to our children in case we don’t wake up, or they don’t,” he says.

Food is cut off and his children chew on weeds. His clinic is demolished — all but two stationary bikes — but Khalid says he will rebuild.

More at BBC

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

Texas surgeon Mohammed Adeel Khaleel, in Gaza on his third volunteer stint

Not long after Texas surgeon Mohammed Adeel Khaleel arrived at a Gaza City hospital in early August, a 17-year-old was brought in with gunshot wounds to both legs and one hand, sustained when he went to collect food at an aid site.

In the emergency room, Khaleel said he noted the ribs protruding from the teen’s emaciated torso, an indication of severe malnutrition. When doctors at Al-Ahli Hospital stabilized the patient, he raised his heavily bandaged hand and pointed to his empty mouth, Khaleel said.

Khaleel, a spinal surgeon, is on his third volunteer stint in Gaza.

“The level of hunger is really what’s heartbreaking,” he said. “You know, we saw malnutrition before, back in November, already starting to happen. But now the level is just, it’s beyond imagination.” 

More at Associated Press

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

Amaal al-Bayouk, 7, her weight dropped from nearly 50 pounds to 22

Amaal al-Bayouk, 7, used to weigh just under 50 pounds, her mother, Asmaa, said. But the war displaced her family at least five times, and Asmaa couldn’t find nutritious food for her daughter. By early July, her weight had slipped to just 22 pounds. Photos her mother shared with The Washington Post showed the skin on her chest stretched taut over her ribs, and her arms and legs barely more than bone.

Amaal spent weeks in Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis last month and the hospital was able to help regain some weight. But since her release, she has struggled to digest whatever food her mother is able to procure, Asmaa said Friday. Doctors told the mother “they no longer can help and have no treatment,” she said. “Sometimes I hear her praying to God: ‘Please, God, don’t let me die until I eat chicken and fish.’”

More at Washington Post

Alaa Haddad, fighting for food in Gaza City

Alaa Haddad, 29, says he goes entire days without eating. When he does eat — often by braving the life-threatening risks of trying to grab food from aid trucks, he said — it is mostly rice, lentils or bread. Vegetables are rare. He said he could remember the last time he ate fruit: eight months ago.

It is hard to endure the feeling of constant hunger. “Every day is a battle with hunger,” he said. “I often don’t have energy.”

Haddad said the frenzied, often violent contests for aid frequently forced him to choose: sacrifice his humanity for food, or keep it and starve.

“You become an animal in search of food,” he said. “When I go home, I think to myself, ‘What did I just do?’”

More at New York Times

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

Ibrahim Abdel Nabi, shot while trying to get food, he made his own prosthetic leg

Ibrahim Abdel Nabi was one of the many Palestinians who headed to a distribution site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation last May in the hope of getting food for his family. Instead, he was shot with an explosive bullet.

“I was bleeding for about an hour and a half, and no one came to help me,” he said. “They were all trying to find food for their children.”

Eventually, a group of people did cme to his rescue and took him to the nearby Red Cross hospital.

“I stayed there for about a month and a half, undergoing about 12 operations. I became malnourished and lost a lot of blood. Infection spread, and more of my leg had to be amputated.”

But his family still needs food, so when he recovered enough, he made a simple prosthesis for his leg from materials he found so he could go back to trying to provide for them. His rough prosthesis hurts and causes inflammation, but it’s the best he can do. 

More at United Nations News

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

Omar al-Midana, businessman and accountant, ordered to evacuate but his family can’t move

Omar al-Midana, a 30-year-old father of two girls, Basma and Ghazal, fled with his family from Gaza City's Shujaiyeh neighborhood to the western part of the city last spring. Now, the Israeli army has ordered them to evacuate south.

But for al-Midana, leaving is no longer possible. His 65-year-old mother was diagnosed with lung cancer just three months ago, and his five-year-old daughter Basma is suffering from malnutrition. So al-Midana plans to raise a white flag as he waits with his family to face whatever comes next.

Before the war, al-Midana had $50,000 in savings. That money is gone, spent on medicine, displacement, rent, food and canned goods. To survive, al-Midana says, he needs around 100 dollars daily. "My mother's treatment is 150–200 dollars every week. Food costs 150 dollars a week. Where do I get it from?"

Once a business manager and an accountant, his life-long achievements were leveled to the ground along with his family home in Shujaiyeh. "I studied, I graduated, I worked, I became a manager. I built a house. I wasn't with any political group, not involved in anything."

“The army tells us to evacuate – where to? Where do we go? What's happening to us is death."

More at Haaretz (liberal Israeli newspaper)

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

Aseel, Ibrahim, and their babies

Ibrahim, 27, is a photographer who works mainly for humanitarian organizations. He and his wife, Aseel, 25, have a 14-month-old daughter, Rose.

They were among the four families who kept video diaries for the first year of the war, for use in a BBC documentary, “One year of war in Gaza: Life, Death, and Hope.”

When we meet Aseel, she is overdue to deliver a second baby. The birth goes well and they name their new baby girl Hayat, which means life. “At a time when everything makes you feel hopeless, she is the one who can bring hope and meaning to our lives,” says Aseel.

But it’s a challenge to survive. There is so little food in the market that Aseel can’t breastfeed. She, Rose, and Hayat all get seriously ill and Hayat needs hospital care. When they arrive, they find the hospital is packed with patients and the staff is stretched to the breaking point. But all three recover.

Ibrahim has to leave his family in their tent while he returns to work as a photographer so he can earn money to support them. “Whenever I take pictures of the children killed in this war,” says Ibrahim, “I feel that they could be my family. I keep waiting to see if it’s them or not.”

More at BBC

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

Adam, a youth worker, and his sisters, Saja and Shaiman

Adam, 29, is a youth worker in Gaza. His two sisters are Saja, 25, and Shaiman, 26. They were among the four families who kept video diaries for the first year of the war, for a BBC documentary, “One year of war in Gaza: Life, Death, and Hope.”

The two sisters are sheltering at a United Nations school with many other displaced Gazans. “We’re trying to imagine ourselves playing with our cats in our garden at home, or on the beach in Gaza, sipping coffee,” says Saja. “We hope peace comes to Gaza soon.”

The school has already been bombed once, with Adam inside. There were many dead. It is attacked again and the family decides to leave. But nowhere is safe.

Adam’s brother, who lives in Ireland, manages to raise enough money through an online appeal — $21,000 — to pay an Egyptian travel company to get Adam and his two sisters through the Rafah Crossing with Egypt. They get out before Israel occupies the Palestinian side and Egypt shuts it down. At the end of the film, they are in Cairo.

More at BBC

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

Muhammad Asfour and his family: Israel warned them to evacuate Gaza City, but they can’t

Subhi Muhammad Asfour came to northern Gaza in search of food, a home and hope. Instead, he and his family are hungry and terrified, as Israeli evacuation orders threaten to force them to move for a seventh time since the war began.

“I came to western Gaza looking for a place to put up a tent,” Asfour, 46, told NBC News. He said transporting his family from the area, as the Israeli military has told Palestinian civilians to do, would cost $500 or more. “I don’t have money,” he said.

“I’m afraid for my children, but where can I go?” he said. “There’s no place and no safety.”

“I want the war to end. I want to sleep. I want to take a shower. I want to eat. We want to raise children,” he said. “God willing, the war will end before we get tired, flee and die.”

 More at NBC News

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

Aya, law graduate and women’s rights advocate

Aya is a 23-year-old recent law school graduate and campaigner for women’s rights who has applied to study international law at the University of Sienna in Italy.

Her family is one of four that kept video diaries during the first year of the Gaza war for use in a BBC documentary, “One year of war in Gaza: Life, Death, and Hope.”

During the course of the year, Aya travels an emotional roller coaster. Early on, she’s checking herself out in a mirror to see that she’s still pretty. She’s terrified when the family is forced to relocate amid bombing, and bored in the tent they move to.

She’s devastated when she learns that the family home in northern Gaza has been destroyed, elated to be accepted by the University of Sienna, grief-stricken when she learns an uncle has been killed, and crushed when the Rafah crossing is closed just before she was to use it to go to Italy. “I might die without achieving my dreams,” she says.

More at 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