Every day, we feature one story of a person or family surviving in Gaza and one about someone killed there recently, based on media reports.
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Khaled and her son Ahmed: had to burn schoolbooks to light a cooking fire
The first time Khaled and her family were displaced, her son Ahmed asked whether he should take his schoolbooks with him. “I said there was no need because we'd be back in a few days," Khulud says, almost choking. "But he insisted on taking them and his schoolbag. He said: 'I want to go on reading.'"
Last winter the family was forced to burn the books; it was the only way to start a fire to cook food. "There were no twigs; we used torn clothes, but that wasn't enough," Khulud says. "I remember taking Ahmed's Arabic-language schoolbook and explaining to him that we had no choice. He cried and so did I."
The story of Khaled, 37, and Ahmed, 11, is told in an article published by Haaretz, an Israeli liberal Zionist newspaper, on July 21.
More at Haaretz
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
Abdallah Abu Samra, 1948 refugee, is homeless again
Abdallah Abu Samra was 10 years old when his family was forced out of the Palestinian village of Iraq Suwaydan where they farmed 100 acres. The village was about 15 miles north of what is now the Gaza Strip. Eventually, the family reunited in Gaza and lived in a beautiful five-story building.
But when the bombs started falling and the walls started shaking as Israeli retaliated for the October 7 Hamas attack, the family, now with about 20 members, had to evacuate again. Some died in attacks. Many raised enough money through GoFundMe drives to pay the $5,000 it cost to cross into Egypt.
Samra is still in Gaza, scraping by with money sent by his relatives in Egypt, and hoping someday that if he can’t ever return to the family farm that is now in Israel, at least maybe he will pitch a tent next to the ruins of his northern Gaza home.
More at The New York Times
Shamm Qudeih, 2, a starving child recovering in Italy
Two-year-old Shamm Qudeih looked like she was near death from starvation when Associated Press freelance journalist Mariam Dagga photographed her at Nasser Hospital on August 9. She was skin and bones, wincing as her mother held her.
A few days later, Shamm was evacuated to Italy. In a photo published September 6, she looks like she’s recovering, although still very thin. Samma suffers from a genetic metabolic illness that interferes with her body’s ability to absorb nutrients. She needed a high-carbohydrate diet, which she is getting in the Italian hospital.
Shamm weighed nine pounds when she arrived in Italy. Now she weighs 12 pounds, still only half of the median weight for a child her age.
Samma’s 10-year-old sister, Judi, and her mother, Islam, were evacuated to Italy with Shamm. Judi also arrived severely undernourished and now is gaining weight. Her father is still in Gaza.
Meanwhile Dagga, the photographer, was killed by an Israeli tank at Nasser Hospital on August 25 along with four other journalists.
More at Associated Press
Yazin, 12, one of 20,000 Gaza orphans
Yazin, 12, and his sister, Yazmin, 8, used to live in a house. But that changed after the Israeli attacks on Gaza that followed the October 7 Hamas attack.
“We were sitting after the evening prayer. My sister and I were playing on the phone. Suddenly the lights went out. I felt the house lift up. and then fall back down on us,” Yazin said.
“I saw the roof had collapsed. it was one cm above my headI pulled my sister out. We started to yell, ‘Shout if you are alive!’ But no one answered.
Both of his parents and his brother were killed.
Now he lives in a tent near the sea with his grandfather, aunt, and two cousins. But his grandfather has terminal cancer, so Yazin feels it’s up to him to take care of the family.
Channel 4, a British public broadcasting service, posted a short documentary about Yazmin 10 months ago. Food was scarce, but there wasn’t yet a famine.
Yazin’s sister, Yazmin, was going to school two hours a day. Yazin was spending his days getting water and food and dealing with other family duties. But in the evening, he found half an hour to fly a kite. “I feel the freedom. I want to fly instead of the kite,” he said.
“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
Noor, 9, child of deaf parents
A United Nations News report September 5 described the plight of people with disabilities in Gaza. They include the deaf parents of a nine-year-old girl named Noor. Noor’s parents must rely on their child to survive Israeli tank shelling and other attacks. She has learned new signing vocabulary for the language of war, including tanks, armed quadcopters, shrapnel and aircraft.
The report also cites the example of Abdulrahman Al-Gharbawi, a 27-year-old graphic designer with cerebral palsy and a lower limb disability. His family has been displaced nine times. Each time, his mother carries his wheelchair while his father and brother carry him.
More at UN News
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
Hani Mahmoud, Al Jazeera correspondent
Hani Mahmoud is an English language correspondent for Al Jazeera in Gaza.
In a recently posted episode of the podcast series The Take, Mahmoud talks about what it’s like covering the war on the ground with bombs falling and electricity repeatedly cut.
At the end of the day, he says, although there’s danger on the roads, he takes the risk to go home to his family.
“It’s worth it so I can see my mom, I can see my dad, I can be with my family,” he says. “You never know, it might be the last time. That’s always on our head. Every step you’re taking, it might be the last one. We’ve seen examples just in the past 30 minutes, a journalist who just finished field work was killed right after that.”
More at YouTube
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
Nurse Bilal Abo-Saada and psychologist Amira Al-Farra, Doctors Without Borders staff, try to cope with constant displacements
Doctors Without Borders has posted a short video of reports from Bilal Abo-Saada, a nurse and Amira Al-Farra, a psychologist, about their repeated displacements during the war.
Al-Farra tells about one time when a person started running down the street in the middle of the night screaming, “Evacuate!” He had just received a phone call from the Israeli army saying they were about to start bombing and everyone must get out of the area immediately. But it was not clear where to go.
Abo-Saada says he has evacuated 11 times during the war. He has an old father who has trouble moving. Now, they are homeless.
Al-Farra thinks, for her, it’s almost eight evacuations. When you leave your home, she says, you leave many memories behind.
AboSaada is trying to save his memories despite so many displacements. “I have a hard drive,” he says, and he takes it out to show it. “It contains all my data, all my documents, all the memories with my friends, with the places we miss at the moment, they are on it. When I am alone, I open these videos and go back to my past and remember how I used to live. It keeps me going in life. It gives me positive energy.”
More at Doctors Without Borders and YouTube
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