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

Jihad Mansour, ambulance officer, and Kamal Ahmad, ambulance driver

The British Red Cross has posted a two-minute video from the Palestine Red Crescent Society about two of their ambulance crew members, ambulance officer Jihad Mansour and driver Kamal Ahmad. The two men describe frantic efforts to save lives, losing friends and co-workers, and not knowing what is happening to their own families while they work.

More at British Red Cross or YouTube

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

Basel Kafinah 28, former falafel maker, trying to feed his family

Basel Kafinah, 28, ran a falafel stand at the a-Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza before the war. But had to stop because he couldn’t get cooking oil or gas and his ingredients became too expensive. 

Instead, he started selling cleaning supplies. Sometimes he buys and sells small quantities of food. 

When prices kept rising out, he finally decided to go to a distribution center four kilometers away. But there were thousands of people there, and Israeli soldiers shot at them. He came home empty handed. The same thing happened on his second attempt. But there’s no alternative so he keeps trying. Sometimes he succeeds, sometimes he doesn’t. 

“We’re constantly shot at, and there are thugs and thieves everywhere,” he said. “There’s danger all around us. If I get hurt, there will be no one to help me – especially at the aid distribution centers, which are crowded and have no ambulances nearby. 

“Every time I leave for a distribution center, I see on my family’s faces how scared they are, as if it’s the last time they’ll ever see me. Going to an aid center feels like walking to my death. When I come home, it feels like God has given me my life back.”

Kafinah told his story to a researcher for B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization, on July 1.

More at B’Tselem

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

Hadi ‘Abed Rabu, 40, shot trying to get food

Hadi Abed Rabu, a 40-year-old husband and father of two, spoke with researchers from B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization, on July 20 and August 5. He described his attempts to get food for his wife and two young daughters. One of his trips was to a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution site in the southern part of the Gaza strip. Another was to a crossing in the north.

On both trips, Rabu says Israeli troops shot at the crowds, killing many people around him. He also describes people fighting over food. On his trip to the northern crossing, Rabu was shot in the leg. 

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

Reem, 13, daughter of Abu Walid, an example of the exploding number of malnourished children

Abu Walid was walking back home with his 13-year-old daughter Reem after visiting his brother's house when she began to complain of fatigue. Step after step, her voice grew weaker until she suddenly collapsed on the road, unconscious for hours.

Terrified, the father of six carried her to the nearest hospital. Doctors ran tests, and the results came back clear: Reem had no illness. Instead, Abu Walid was told what he had feared but never imagined would touch his daughter so soon: She was suffering from malnutrition.

Reem and her brother Karim now struggle with constant fatigue and weakness, their growth stunted by a lack of proper food.

Their story is told in a recent article in Haaretz, a liberal Israeli newspaper. “Doctors say cases of malnutrition have surged in recent months, with more and more children arriving dehydrated, underweight and too weak to carry out daily activities, like fetching water, bringing food from charity kitchens and NGOs, or even playing with other kids,” the article says.

The article says such cases are now common, and hospitals, with not enough doctors and medicine, can’t cope. "Every day, we are forced to choose who receives treatment and who must wait," one pharmacist who volunteers in Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah told Haaretz. "This is not medicine. This is survival."

More at Haaretz

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

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)