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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Fatima al-Zahra Sahweil, displaced 19 times, refused to move again
Fatima al-Zahra Sahwell, a 40-year-old mother of four children sheltering in Gaza City, says she won’t obey Israeli orders to move away, despite frequent bombings near her.
The escape route is jammed, she doesn’t have the money to buy a tent, and she doesn’t believe the areas where Israel wants her to move would be safer than where she is. “There is not a single day without bombings and deaths in the south, even in the so-called humanitarian zones that the army declared. So, would I just be running from death to death?”
More at The Guardian
Mohammed Doghmosh, 26, and other unarmed members of his family, shot by Israeli snipers when they crossed an invisible line
In a five-month investigation, the Guardian, Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ) and Paper Trail Media, Der Spiegel, and ZDF identified six people shot by Israeli snipers on November 22, 2023. The Guardian published the results on September 6.
The investigation included interviews with survivors, witnesses and relatives, reviews of death certificates, medical records and geolocated images. It showed how a family from Gaza City’s Tal al-Hawa neighborhood was torn apart in a few hours by men who grew up in Naperville, Illinois, and Munich, Germany.
When asked how his squad decided whether to shoot unarmed Palestinians, one of the snipers answered, “It’s a question of distance. There is a line that we define. They don’t know where this line is, but we do.”
More at The Guardian
Hiba al-Sheikh Khalil, Gaza mother whose story was read by Greta Thunberg on board the humanitarian aid flotilla
The Sumud Flotilla consists of about 50 boats now crossing the Mediterranean to try to break the Israeli blockade and deliver humanitarian supplies to Gaza. One of those aboard is Greta Thunberg who became famous as a 15-year-old climate activist. She is now 22.
Al Jazeera posted a video of Thunberg reading a statement from Hiba al-Sheikh Khalil, a Gaza mother of five.
“We were displaced five times in the north before we arrived in the camp at Deir el-Balah in central Gaza. There was so much bombing and shooting and fear in northern Gaza, the children were terrified. We had to leave,” she says.
“We arrived in Deir el-Balah with no tent to live in and no belongings, because each move meant we lost more of our things. You leave most of your possessions behind wherever you go because you can't afford to take them.
“Now we're here with nowhere to live. The children are living on the street. I have nothing to meet their needs, no clothes, no tents, no mats to sleep on, no food. We have no income, so even a small meal costs more than we can afford.
“We have no strength left, no energy to run.”
More at Al Jazeera
An anonymous Gaza writer chronicles life in the war zone: “Here, life is simple and tragic.”
“In the face of my eldest son, who is not yet 14, I see a reflection of a war that has stolen his childhood and imposed burdens on him greater than his years.
“He has become an expert at water distribution routes, haggling for bread and carrying heavy gallons of water. I feel boundless pride in his courage, yet simultaneously a painful sense of powerlessness because I can’t protect him from what’s happening around us.”
So writes a Gaza resident in a letter posted August 4 by UN News. The United Nations withheld his name to protect him.
“My wife is trying to create an oasis of hope for our other children. My two eldest daughters continue to learn online when the internet is intermittently working and to read whatever books are available,” he writes.
“My youngest daughter draws on worn pieces of cardboard while my youngest son, who is four, has no memory of anything other than the sound of explosions.
“We stand helpless in the face of his innocent questions. There are no schools, no education, only desperate attempts to keep the brightness of childhood alive in them, in the face of a brutal reality.”
More at UN News
Anas, journalist, did not live to see his baby son
Yasmin Abu Shamala, a translator and writer from Gaza, and her journalist husband, Anas, learned she was pregnant just before the Gaza war began. If the baby was a boy, they decided they would name him Malik.
Malik is now one year and four months old, but he never got to meet his father. Anas was killed while reporting from Gaza City.
Malik was the couple’s second child. Before the war, Yasmin writes, Anas had “poured himself into fatherhood” with his first son, Ibrahim, who is now three. But Yasmin is bringing up Malik alone.
More at Al Jazeera
Gaza City ex-school teacher: “I don’t have anywhere to go”
Israel has ordered everyone in Gaza City to evacuate, but many residents say that’s impossible.
“We are all terrified,” said Montaser Bahja, a former schoolteacher sheltering in an apartment in western Gaza City near the coast. “Death would be more merciful than what we’re living through.”
“I don’t have anywhere to go in southern Gaza — no house, no tent, no car in which to travel.
“They’re not fighting Hamas. They’re fighting all of us civilians.”
More at The New York Times
Mohammed, 1, killed hours after speaking his first words
UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund, reported in July that 15 Palestinians, including nine children and four women, were killed while waiting in line for food in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip.
One of them was a one-year-old baby named Mohammed. His mother, Donia, said he had just spoken his first words to her hours earlier. “Donia now lies in a hospital bed, critically injured by the blast, clutching Mohammed’s tiny shoe. No parent should have to face such tragedy,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.
Thirty more people including 19 children were wounded in the attack.
The aid was being provided by a UNICEF partner organization, Project Hope.
More at UNICEF
Dr Nada Abu Al Rub, an Australian doctor at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, posted a video about conditions at the hospital
Dr. Nada Abu Alrub, an Australian doctor working at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City along with fellow Australian Dr. Saia Aziz, made a short video in which she describes horrific conditions at the hospital.
The hospital, she says, is out of the most basic supplies like scissors, gloves, and soap. The Australians were not allowed to bring baby formula with them when they came.
“I’m asking for help … from any part of the world. Can anyone be able to stop this terror and horror? Please?”
Dr. Al Rub also posted a one-minute video from inside the hospital. “We see what horror movies don’t dare show: abdomens ripped open, limbs gone, brains exposed, eyes destroyed, children burned alive,” she says.
The video shows her trying to help a 16-year-old with a bullet in his brain, shot at a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid distribution site.
Six members of Dr. Mohammed Abu Salmiya’s family, killed while he worked at Al-Shifa Hospital
Dr. Mohammed Abu Salmiya is the director of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza. While he was at work on Saturday, September 20, the bodies of six members of his family were brought to the hospital: his brother, two of his brother’s sons, his nephew’s wife, and two of their children. An Israeli airstrike had hit the family home in the Al Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City. Seven other people were wounded in the attack.
According to The Times of Israel, the Israeli military said Dr. Salmiya’s brother was “a sniper for Hamas [who] was preparing to carry out an imminent terror attack against IDF troops.”
But The Times said Dr. Salmiya denied that, saying, “My brother is a 57-year-old man who suffers from several illnesses such as high blood pressure and diabetes, and he has severe vision impairment — and they claim he was a sniper? This is pure fabrication.”
More at CNN and The Times of Israel
Layan, 19, trying to graduate from high school
Palestine has a nationwide high school graduation test known as tawjihi. It was cancelled for Gaza in 2024 but Palestine education officials announced in July that the 2025 tests would go forward.
But they quickly ran into big problems because the internet keeps breaking down. Students couldn’t download the exam application, and those who got past that hurdle often couldn’t upload their answers.
Even while their neighborhoods were being shelled, however, there were students trying to take the test and get their diplomas.
One of them was 19-year-old Layan in Gaza City. Her father, Husam, says her effort to complete her studies is her lifeline. "It's the only thing that keeps her mind off death," Husam said. "It gives her hope that she can escape this life. She's putting all of her efforts to secure a scholarship abroad hoping that she would be able to travel."
More at Haaretz
The Abu Teir family: Mother and father, brother and sister, grandmother, three cousins, and an aunt killed
The Abu Teir family: Mother and father, brother and sister, grandmother, three cousins, and an aunt killed
The Abu Teir family thought the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas early this year would give them a chance to put their lives back together. But on March 18, Israel broke the agreement, killing more than 400 people that night.
Among the dead were eight members of the Teir family: Huda Abu Teir, 19, who was studying to become a nurse; her mother, Asmaa; her father, Mohammed; her brother, Addullah; three cousins and an aunt, all killed when the Israeli military bombed their home.
More at The New York Times
Sharaf Odeh: As bombs fall, he studies for his Master’s Degree
There’s famine and bombing in Gaza City, but that hasn’t kept Sharaf Odeh, 26, from studying for his Master’s Degree in Digital Business Administration.
All of Gaza’s universities have been destroyed or heavily damaged by Israeli bombs, but Odeh is enrolled in several online courses. Solar panels power his computer.
The degree, he believes, will give him a better future.
More at Haaretz
Karam al-Ghussain, 9, and Lulu, 10, little brother and big sister, waiting for water when an Israeli strike hit the water distribution
Karam al-Ghussain, 9, and Lulu, 10, brother and sister, were waiting beside a water distribution station, holding jerry cans and buckets, when it was bombed on Saturday, July 13.
The Guardian reported:
Lulu’s real name was Lana but her parents rarely used it because her nickname, which means pearl, captured the gentle shine she brought to family life. “She had such a joyful personality, and a heart full of kindness,” Heba (her mother) said.
Karam was smart, always top of his class until Israeli attacks shut down Gaza’s schools, generous and mature beyond his years. His dad, Ashraf al-Ghussain, called him “abu sharik” or “my partner”, because he seemed “like a man in spirit”.
But he was also enough of a child to be obsessed by a remote-controlled car that he begged his mother to buy. She regrets telling him they needed to save money for food. “I wish I had spent everything I had to buy it for him so he could have played with it before he died.”
More at The Guardian
Mariam Sabbah, 9, injured in an Israeli strike, needs reconstructive surgery in the US but can’t get it because of the Trump travel ban
Mariam Sabbah had been fast asleep, huddled under a blanket with her siblings, when an Israeli missile tore through her home in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, in the early hours of 1 March.
The missile narrowly missed the sleeping children but as the terrified nine-year-old ran to her parents, a second one hit. “I saw her coming towards me but suddenly there was another explosion and she vanished into the smoke,” says her mother, Fatma Salman.
The parents searched desperately for their children and found Mariam lying unconscious in a pool of blood; her left arm was ripped off, shards of shrapnel had pierced through her small body, and she was bleeding heavily from her abdomen.
Besides blowing off her arm, the blast left Mariam with severe abdominal and pelvic injuries from shrapnel tearing through her bladder, uterus, and bowel.
“Mariam needs specialised paediatric reconstructive surgery,” says Dr Mohammed Tahir, a British surgeon who treated Mariam while volunteering at al-Aqsa hospital in Gaza. “Her arm amputation is also very high and requires limb lengthening and specialist prosthesis. Without this, it will be very difficult for her to live a normal life.”
Mariam and her family secured the offer of surgical care from a specialist team in Ohio, and the little girl waited two months to be given permission from Cogat to leave Gaza, by which time her condition had deteriorated. She was finally evacuated to Egypt but was then stuck for months waiting for her US travel documents to be processed.
President Trump has blocked medical evacuation for children on the grounds that their accompanying parents are security risks.
More at The Guardian
Raja: Shortly before he died, he caught a fish for his English teacher
Gaza writer Hend Salama Abo Helow reports on education in Gaza in an article in Truthout.
One of the students she describes was named Raja. His English teacher was Lamia Hatem Othman. Helow writes: “Raja walked long distances to attend her lessons. Fishing was his only escape, despite Israel’s severe restrictions on the sea. Each time, he returned with one or two fish, which he proudly shared with classmates.
“One day he told her: ‘The next fish will be for you, Mrs. Lamia.’ But Raja never came back. Later, Othman found his name among those who were killed. His sister confirmed, in a broken voice: ‘He loved you a lot. The fish he caught for you is still here, in a decorated plastic bag.’”
More at Truthout
Yousef al-Mashharawi, father of three with nowhere to go
Yousef al-Mashharawi is a 32-year-old photographer and film-maker with two daughters and a son sheltering with family in the Nasser district of Gaza City.
He knows the risks of remaining are rising steeply. “The fighter jets and helicopters do not stop firing. Last night was terrifying,” Mashharawi said. “I haven’t exactly ‘decided’ to stay, but the truth is, I have nowhere else to go,” he said. The family was displaced to southern Gaza earlier in the war and he has no wish to go back.
“The army claimed it was a ‘humanitarian zone’, but that was completely false. It was the opposite. There were always strikes happening there, and they are still happening,” he said.
More at The Guardian
Karam, 12, and his sister Judy, 10, killed by a shell that hit their home in Gaza City
The Israeli move to fully occupy Gaza City is in the news, but earlier attacks also devastated families.
On July 5, a shell hit the home of 12-year-old Karam and 10-year Judy in the city’s al Zeitoun neighborhood, killing them both.
Their eight-year-old sister, Retal, was seriously injured. Retal has undergone nine abdominal surgeries since then, but they haven't relieved her suffering, UNICEF USA reports.
For two months now, Retal has been waiting for Israeli authorities to allow her to be medically evacuated so she can receive the treatment she needs.
More at UNICEF USA
Enas, 21, still studying computer engineering, but feels her dreams are slipping away
Enas, a 21-year-old computer systems engineering student from Rafah, had just completed her second year at Al-Azhar University when the war began. Displaced to Al-Mawasi, near Khan Yunis, she’s still studying, but she battles despair.
"Since our last displacement, my academic situation has been very bad. I don't think I'll register for another semester," she admitted. Before the war, she had pictured herself already working in her field. "I used to study because I loved it. I wanted to graduate, work and even work while studying. Now I'm just barely getting by. I don't have the same goals or hope as before."
Her field depends on reliable internet and long hours on a laptop – luxuries she no longer has. "The internet here is so weak, and the electricity is unstable. Sometimes it cuts during an exam, and I manage to reconnect and finish. Other times, I lose the exam completely."
Her grades have slipped, but the hardest loss is personal. Early in the war, she lost her closest friend and study partner – one of the more than 15,000 schoolchildren killed since the war began, according to UNICEF.
"I don't like remembering how I felt when she was killed," Enas said. "Even now, whenever I submit an assignment or finish a project, I miss her and wish she were here."
More at Haaretz
Mohammed Ramez Al-Sultan, 14, soccer player, killed in an air strike on his home along with 14 other family members
Mohammed Ramez Al-Sultan was a 14-year-old soccer player who had graduated from the Al-Hilal Club FIFA-accredited academy and lived in the northern part of Gaza City. The Palestinian Football Association announced Monday that he had been killed in an Israeli airstrike on his home, along with his father and 13 other family members.
A youth player for Al-Hilal, Abu Al-Amaren, was shot dead by Israeli forces on September 6 while waiting for humanitarian aid in northern Gaza.
More at Anadolu Ajansı, a Turkish state-run news agency
Fatima al-Zahra Sahweil, displaced 19 times, refused to move again
Fatima al-Zahra Sahwell, a 40-year-old mother of four children sheltering in Gaza City, says she won’t obey Israeli orders to leave, despite frequent bombings near her.
The designated escape route is jammed, she doesn’t have the money to buy a tent, and she doesn’t believe the areas where Israel wants her to go are safer than where she is. “There is not a single day without bombings and deaths in the south, even in the so-called humanitarian zones that the army declared. So, would I just be running from death to death?”
Sahwell said she has already moved her family 19 times since the war began.
More at The Guardian