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

Sarah al-Barsh, 10, two arms amputated above the elbow, father killed

"My father and I were walking home," says 10-year-old Sara al-Barsh. “Suddenly the house we were passing by was bombed. I fainted for about 15 minutes, then I woke up. When I woke up, I couldn't find my hands. I started screaming, 'Dad, Dad' – but he didn't respond."

Sara’s father was killed. She was taken to hospitals where her arms had to be amputated above the elbow. She hasn't had any rehab, so she has been doing it herself as best she can in her new home – a tent in Gaza City's Sheikh Radwan neighborhood. She has been painting with her feet.

"Before the injury, I lived a normal life, like any other child with two hands," she says. "I used to eat, drink, play and comb my hair – now I can't do anything on my own."

Her mother, Amani al-Barsh, hopes she can get out of Gaza and be fitted with prosthetic arms. "She used to dream of becoming a doctor or an engineer,” says her mother. “Today, after the amputations, she insists on being a pediatrician to help 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

Alma, 12: “"The war is hard and long, but we try to live.”

Alma, 12 years old, loves to write. With school closed, she creates her own homework, writing about life in the family's half-destroyed home in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. "The war is hard and long, but we try to live," she says.

Alma is one of the Gaza residents interviewed by the Israeli liberal Zionist newspaper Haaretz for a report published July 21.

"I've been helping my mother at home – fetching water, lighting a fire,” she told them. “I've also been helping her with my brother Wissam, who's 4. I've been singing him lullabies before he goes to sleep. I've been telling him stories from what I remember from school."

Life in her damaged home is better than in the tents the family lived in when they had to flee to other parts of Gaza. "Life in the tent is hard because of the sand, the mosquitoes, the flies.

"At night it's hard to sleep because you hear people in other tents. Also, all of us were in one tent. In the winter the rain leaks in, so my parents and I took turns holding the tarps so that water wouldn't leak in."

Her life now is a far cry from the one she had before the war. "I miss my friends. I'd like to meet with them like we used to; I want to know that they're all right," Alma says.

She misses her friends, who are scattered through Gaza. She tries to keep up using her mother’s phone. One friend lost her father and mother. Another friend was wounded. 

She’s scared of the Israeli bombs, but tries not to show it. "I've been talking to my sister, who's two years younger than me, about what we wish we could eat. She wants chocolate cake, while I'd like waffles with maple syrup and vanilla ice cream.”

More at Haaretz

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

Ibrahim, 48, father of four: “My children have no future.”

"I go through some very hard moments as a father," Ibrahim says about his children. "One that left a mark on me was when I was hugging them during shelling, not knowing if we would come out alive. I've been facing a daily dilemma: whether to send one of the children to get water while I'm trying to get food." 

"I'm an educated man, and what's most painful is that I now know for sure that my children have no future," Ibrahim says. 

Ibrahim is one of the Gaza residents profiled by Haaretz on July 21. They conducted all their interviews by phone and video call. 

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

Mohammed al-Darbi, 11: “We’re eating sand instead of bread.”

Elevn-year-old Mohammed al-Darbi is one of the children struggling to survive in Gaza that the Israeli newspaper Haaretz spotlighted in a report published. Haaretz said he appeared in a video recorded around July 1 on al-Rashid Street in Gaza City. 

Al-Darbi appears near an aid delivery center. "There is no flour in Gaza City," he says. "Every day they tell us that there are aid trucks; we go there and come back with nothing.

"There is no food, have pity on us. We're eating sand instead of bread."

Haaretz said Al-Darbi is one of the countless children crowding around when the aid center is opened. 

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

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