Nahidh Abdelsalam, 56, devastated by the death of two sons

US filmmaker Idris Hausler made a short video in which he read the story of Nahidh Abdelsalam, 56, a Palestinian father in Gaza. Abdelsalam says Israeli forces tore apart his family when they killed two of his sons. He’s trying to support his remaining children and dead sons’ children, but there’s no food. 

Hausler was on board the Global Sumud Flotilla that sailed to Gaza in a civil disobedience effort to break the Israeli siege. Israeli naval forces arrested everyone aboard.

More at Al Jazeera

Mohamed Kilani, killed while searching for food for his family

The New York Times talked with Mohamed Kilani, a lawyer in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahia, in October, 2024. At the time, he was barely able to feed his twin 2-year-old daughters, the Times reports.

“We have been given one option only: that is to die,” he told us at the time.

Later, Times reporters saw social media posts from his family that mourned his death. When we reached his cousin, she said he had gone to look for food for his family and never returned.

After he disappeared, family members saw some photos of stray dogs eating corpses in northern Gaza, the cousin said. They thought they recognized his body among them.

Kilani’s cousin is one of nearly 100 Gaza residents the Times was able to reach, out of more than 700 interviewed earlier in the war.

More at The New York Times

Nahida Khalil Anton, 75, and Samar Kamal Anton, 50, killed on the grounds of a Gaza City Catholic church

Western media coverage of civilian deaths in Gaza has increased sharply in the last few months, but there were also many killings early in the Israeli response to the October 7 attack that were hard to explain as unintentional collateral damage. 

One of these was the killing of two Christian women, 75-year-old Nahida Khalil Anton and her 50-year-old daughter, Samar Kamal Anton, as they were walking on the grounds of a Catholic Church in Gaza City on Saturday, December 14, 2024. 

The two women were apparently killed by a sniper. 

NPR and Al Jazeera both reported on the deaths, with NPR suggesting that, while the Latin Patriarchate in Jerusalem pinned the blame on Israel, it was possible the shooter was from Hamas.

More at NPR and Al Jazeera

Maria, mother of seven, shot while waiting for food

Maria, a 40-year-old mother of seven, was killed last July by a bullet to her neck as she tried get food to feed her family at an Israeli-sponsored aid site in Rafah.

Her sister, Khola Sheikh Alaid, described a scene of chaos when Israeli troops started shooting at women waiting for food. She and Maria were separated in the confusion. She learned later that Maria had been killed. Maria’s husband was killed earlier in the war. Their children now live with their aunt.

More from Al Jazeera

Doctors Without Borders nurse Hussein Alnajjar, killed by shrapnel from an airstrike near his tent

Hussein Alnajjar, a nurse working for Doctors Without Borders, died of shrapnel injuries on September 16 after an Israeli airstrike hit near his tent, also injuring his nephew and sister-in-law. He had worked in Doctors Without Borders clinics in Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis since January 2024. He had previously worked alongside Doctors Without Borders teams as a sterilization technician in a limb reconstruction project at Al-Awda Hospital.

Hussein was a husband and a father to three young children. Doctors Without Borders said he was eagerly looking forward to seeing his brother, whom he supported financially, finally graduate from medical school in Egypt.

More at Doctors Without Borders

Maha Afana’s two children, killed in an attack that hit families in tents

At attack in early September on tents housing displaced families killed 25 people including nine children and six women, according to records at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. 

Maha Afana said the strikes woke her up in the middle of the night as she slept in a tent in Gaza City with her children. When she checked on them she found the bodies of her son and daughter, drenched with blood. “I started screaming,” she said.

“What did those children do to the state of Israel? They didn’t carry a knife or artillery. They were just sleeping,” said Hayam Basous, who lost a relative in the strike.

More at PBS

Yahya Barzaq, journalist working for a Turkish broadcaster

Yahya Barzaq, a freelance journalist for the Turkish television and radio broadcaster TRT World, was killed in Israeli air strike in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza September 30.

TRTWorld said Barzaq was documenting the war’s impact on civilians when an Israeli strike hit a cafe where he was reportedly uploading footage.

He was among five people killed in the attack, according to Palestinian media.

Palestinian outlets reported that the strike in Deir al-Balah also targeted a carpentry workshop.

More at TRTWorld

Alaa Abd-Elsalam Ali Okal, 29, field hospital laundry worker

Alaa Abd-Elsalam Ali Okal, a laundry worker at the Doctors Without Borders field hospital in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza, was killed by an Israeli airstrike on his apartment building in the early morning hours of March 18 after Israel broke a ceasefire that had lasted nearly two months. 

He was one of hundreds of Gazans killed that day. Alaa Okal had joined the Doctors Without Borders staff in September, 2024. He was 29 years old.

More at Doctors Without Borders including photos of Alaa Abd-Elsalam Ali Okal and other staff members killed in the war

Ahmed Al-Qudra and his two children, killed because they didn’t know Israel had delayed a ceasefire in January

On January 19, at 8:30am, a ceasefire in Gaza was supposed to begin. But Israel delayed it on the grounds that Hamas had not yet produced a list of the hostages they would release. Hamas later said communications with the units holding the hostages were difficult under constant Israeli attack and they had not been able to complete the list in time.

But Gazans did not know the Israelis had decided not to stop their attacks. 

That morning, shortly after 9 am, Ahmed Al-Qudra set off with his 16-year-old son, Adli, and 6-year-old daughter, Sama. He wanted to see if his house in Khan Younis was still standing. 

As they passed an intersection where police were directing traffic, Israeli forces attacked the policemen, killing several, and also killing Ahmad and his children. Israel considers all police Hamas terrorists.

NBC News produced a short video about their deaths.

More at Youtube

Reem Zeidan, walked into the death zone at the food distribution site hoping to feed her children

Reem Zeidan was terrified of being separated from her children. As they trudged for hours through the ruins of Gaza towards a food distribution centre, she rehearsed over and over again with her 20-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son what they should do and where they should wait if an Israeli attack turned the column of hungry people into a chaotic, panicking mass and the family were torn apart.

It was the last conversation she had with them. She was dead before dawn broke on Tuesday, killed by a single bullet through her forehead. Her daughter and son spent nearly three hours beside her body, pinned down by gunfire.

“We went there out of desperation. Hunger is what forced my mother to go. She had been going every day for a full week walking six hours to get there and coming back with nothing,” Mirvat, her daughter, said in a phone interview.

A couple of days before, after Israeli forces had opened fire on the weary crowds approaching new Israeli and US-backed food distribution centres, Mirvat had begged Reem not to risk the trip any more.

“I told my mother it was a sign from God not to go again and that convinced her,” Mirvat said. “But she would quickly change her mind when my little sister Razan, who is only five years old, cried to her that she was hungry.”

More at The Guardian including photos and a map showing where Zaidan was killed

Ahmed, shot dead carrying a sack of flour for his family he was given at an aid distribution site

An 18-year-old boy named Talal told a B’Tselem field researcher how his brother Ahmed, 24, was shot on September 10 as the two walked home carrying bags of flour from an aid distribution center in northern Gaza. They had gone there with their uncle, Bilal.

B’Tselem is an Israeli human rights organization.

“Even before we got there, I heard gunfire and later I learned that five people had been killed. When we arrived, there were no trucks, just crowds waiting. Tanks on the mounds were firing at the people. Some lay on the ground, others hid behind the sand mounds. People were killed and no one could remove the bodies.

“Around 5:00 P.M., the three of us moved forward. There were many people, and trucks arrived with flour sacks. Each of us got one. On the way back, Bilal took a path alone and Ahmad and I walked together. The gunfire was heavy and direct. Suddenly Ahmad was hit and fell. I tried to save him. I took off my shirt and pressed it against the wound, but realized he’d died immediately. He was shot directly in the heart.”

More at B’Tselem

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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