Israel’s war in Gaza has killed over 17,000 children. These are the stories of 28 of them
28 children
Sheren Falah Saab writes in Haaretz on 26 June 2025:
“Gaza is becoming a graveyard for children,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres as early as November 6, 2023. His statement was harshly criticized by Israel and dismissed as exaggerated by much of the Israeli public and media. In the 21 months since, the number of casualties in Gaza has largely remained on the margins of Israeli media coverage, including the children killed in the war.
In the weeks before the outbreak of war between Israel and Iran, Israel’s media had begun to briefly mention these figures, influenced in part by growing global media attention, which has made the issue harder to ignore. But the Iran war pushed any deeper engagement with the deaths in Gaza far to the margins, worldwide and in Israel.
According to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, 17,121 children were killed in Gaza from the start of the war through to June 15. Of these, 937 were infants under the age of 1. Another 4,517 were between the ages of 1 and 5, 6,325 were aged 6 to 12, and the rest – 5,342 – were minors aged between 13 and 17.
This death toll is almost without precedent, particularly given the population size and the war’s duration. The IDF’s standard response is that it operates in accordance with international law and makes significant efforts to avoid civilian harm.
These are the stories of 28 of the thousands of children who have been killed. They include brothers, sisters and twins. Seeing their faces, and the violently truncated span of their lives, one cannot help but recall Guterres’ remark, made more than 600 days ago.
Father Mohammed had just registered their birth when the twins were killed. Twins Ayser and Aysal Abu al-Qumsan, 4 days old | Killed in Deir al-Balah on August 13, 2024. Jumana Abu al-Qumsan had given birth to twins via C-section just four days earlier. That morning, her husband Mohammed stepped out to collect their birth certificates and register them with Gaza’s authorities. According to an Associated Press report, early in the war the family had relocated from northern Gaza, following evacuation orders issued by the Israeli military. They found shelter in the al-Qastal neighborhood in east Deir al-Balah. Later that day, neighbors called Mohammed to tell him the house had been bombed. His newborn twins, Ayser and Aysal, were killed along with their mother and grandmother. In a video posted to social media, Mohammed is seen weeping while clutching his twins’ birth certificates. His sobbing falters as he stumbles and faints. “I don’t know what happened,” he told Sky News. “They told me a shell hit the house.” He spoke just before being called to the Al-Aqsa Hospital to identify his family. When CBC News contacted the Israeli military for comment at the time, the IDF said the family’s claims were “not currently known” to them, adding that the military was engaged in combat with Hamas and was targeting “only military objectives,” while employing “various measures to minimize harm to civilians.”
Awni dreamed of a million followers on YouTube. Awni Eldous, age 12 | Killed in Gaza City on October 7, 2023 On October 7, 2023, following the Hamas attack on Israel earlier that day, an Israeli airstrike on a residential building in Gaza City killed 15 people, including seven children
One of them was 12-year-old Awni Eldous, nicknamed “the Engineer” by his family for his fascination with computer games and software.In 2022, Awni launched a YouTube channel in hopes of becoming a gaming influencer. In his first video, he stands excitedly in front of the camera, holding a microphone: “Now, folks, let me introduce myself,” he says with a wide smile. “I am Awni Eldous, a Palestinian from Gaza aged 12 years old. The aim of this channel is to reach 100,000 subscribers, or 500,000 – or one million. Thank you for 1,000 subscribers.” Behind him, glimpses of life in pre-war Gaza – passersby walking, cars on the street. Awni uploaded gameplay videos, mostly soccer and war games, along with commentary and information about the games and the companies that made them. His aunt, Ala’a Eldous, told the BBC how kind and helpful he was. His dad was a computer engineer, Ala’a said, and Awni would copy his father, “pulling laptops apart and then trying to piece them back together.” Awni’s dream came true only after his death: his channel now has over 1.5 million subscribers. His original introduction video has since been removed.
Youssef Abu Moussa, age 7 | Killed in Khan Yunis on October 15, 2023 On October 7, 2023, following the Hamas attack on Israel earlier that day, an Israeli airstrike on a residential building in Gaza City killed 15 people, including seven children. Youssef was killed while watching cartoons with his brother. To help his children cope with Gaza’s frequent power outages, Mohammed Abu Moussa, a radiographer at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, installed solar panels at home so they could keep watching cartoons. That’s what his children were doing on October 15 when an airstrike hit their home. Youssef, age 7, was killed when the roof collapsed. His siblings, 13-year-old Jury and 9-year-old Hamed, survived. Their father was on a 24-hour hospital shift when his wife Rawan arrived at the scene. In a video posted on social media, she is seen running through the hospital, frantically searching for her son. When a relative tells her they had seen him, she pleads, “take me to him,” then collapses in grief when she learns that Youssef is dead. Mohammed found his son’s body in the morgue after rescue workers pulled him from the rubble. “The last time I saw Yousef alive was when he ran to hug me on the doorstep of our home, just before I left for work,” he told the BBC. “He kissed me and said goodbye after I had given him some biscuits and bananas. He wanted to be a doctor, maybe because he always saw me going to hospital for work.”
The girl who never gave up on the joy of life. Yaqeen Hammad, age 11 | Killed in Deir al-Balah on May 23, 2025
Yaqeen Hammad was known for her bright presence on social media, where she often shared videos showing life under siege and war. She did so not with anger or despair, but with a spirit of hope and a deep faith in goodness. In one video, the 11-year-old gestures toward a pot over an open flame: “This is a wartime invention,” she explains. “There’s no gas, so we cook on wood and use a fan underneath to keep the fire going. In Gaza,” she adds with a smile, “nothing is impossible.” Together with her brother Mohammed, Yaqeen volunteered with a local nonprofit called Ouena. She helped deliver food, organized activities for children, and worked to preserve a sense of childhood amid the devastation. Her Instagram account grew to over 100,000 followers, making her a symbol of childhood and a reminder of the joy of life, even in the face of ongoing destruction. On May 23, 2025, Yaqeen was killed in Israeli shelling on Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. According to the WAFA news agency, the strike also killed ten others. Yaqeen, who for many had come to represent the human face of Gaza, was mourned across the Arab world – her death once again raising the painful question: is there any space left for childhood in Gaza?
Hind begged for help for more than three hours. Hind Rajab, age 6 | Killed in Gaza City on January 29, 2024
On January 29, Hind Rajab and her family left their home in Tel al-Hawa, following Israeli military orders to evacuate the area.
During the drive, Israeli forces opened fire on the car. Everyone in the car was killed, except for Hind, For three and a half hours, she was on the line with a woman from the Palestinian Red Cross – parts of that conversation were shared online – until communication was cut off. Her fate remained unknown for 12 days. On February 10, her body was found in the car, along with those of her uncle Bashar Hamada and his 15-year-old daughter Layan. The two paramedics sent to rescue her, Yousef al-Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoun, were also killed. A Washington Post investigation concluded that Israeli armored vehicles were in the area at the time. Experts found that the gunfire heard while Hind and cousin Layan were begging for help, and the damage to the ambulance, were consistent with Israeli weaponry. In response, the Israeli military said it had conducted a preliminary investigation and found its forces were “not present near the vehicle or within firing range.” It did not comment on the timeline of events or on the independent findings presented by the investigation.
Saja and Omar were killed with four of their siblings. Siblings Saja and Omar Hawajra, ages 13 and 4 | Killed in Gaza City on October 21, 2023
An airstrike on a residential building in Gaza, just over two weeks into the war, killed nine members of the Hawajra family. Yahia, one of the surviving brothers who lives outside Gaza, listed six of his siblings among the dead: 4-year-old Omar, 9-year-old Mohammed, 13-year-old Saja, 14-year-old Harith, 21-year-old Hamza, and 27-year-old Amal, who was killed along with her husband and their two young children – 2-year-old Ayman and 1-year-old Ibrahim. Yahia’s parents, his brother Yassin and sister Maha, along with her babies Ragda and Moussab, survived the strike. “When they bombed our neighbors’ home a few hours before ours,” Yahia recalled in a eulogy for his sister Saja on X, “Saja broke into tears and said, ‘I want to die, to get rid of this life.'” He said she loved soccer, especially Real Madrid. “She adored Ronaldo and used to send me every goal he scored. She was always excited for him.”
In death, Maria joined her mother and brothers, killed in an airstrike in 2021. Maria Abu Khattab, age 9 | Killed in Gaza City on February 14, 2024
Maria Abu Khattab was killed along with her father, Alaa, when an airstrike hit their car on al-Jalaa Street in Gaza City. Her father’s wife and her baby brother, who were also in the car, survived. Maria had already survived one tragedy. In 2021, she lost her mother and three brothers in an Israeli airstrike. At the time, only she and her father made it out alive – a story widely covered in the Arab world. In an interview with Al-Quds in April 2022, her father described the emotional toll that loss had taken on his daughter. She often asked about her mother and the brothers she used to play with. He spent much of his time trying to ease her grief. “Maria lost her mother’s love and she misses her brothers,” he said. “They were everything in this world for her […] Now she’s alone. All she has left is me.”
Sham was killed alongside her big brother. Mahmoud and Sham al-Dahdouh, ages 16 and 6 | Killed in Nuseirat refugee camp on October 25, 2023 A strike on a home in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza killed 16-year-old Mahmoud al-Dahdouh and his 6-year-old sister Sham, along with their mother. Their father, Wael al-Dahdouh, is the Gaza bureau chief for Al Jazeera and became a widely recognized face across the Arab world for his reporting during the early months of the war. According to Al Jazeera, Wael was shocked to learn that the strike had hit the very area where his family had taken shelter – one of the places the Israeli military had designated as a safe zone. In a Facebook post, he described his son Mahmoud as a boy full of joy, someone who lit up every gathering and dreamed of becoming a journalist. “Obviously, attacks against children, women and citizens are continuing,” he told Al Jazeera. “I have reported on Israeli strikes on all areas, including Nuseirat. I doubted that Israel would refrain from harming innocents and, unfortunately, this is what happened. The area that had been declared safe was attacked. They’re taking their revenge on us through our children.” Shortly before their deaths, Mahmoud and their sister Khulood, 14, posted a video showing the devastation around them. In English, they pleaded: “Help us stay alive.”
The four sons of the Miqdad family. Brothers Islam, Imad, Yazan and Abd al-Rahman Miqdad, ages 14, 12, 8 and 3 | Killed in Khan Yunis on March 30, 2025. The four Miqdad brothers were killed alongside their grandfather, 68-year-old Imad, when a strike hit the house they were sheltering in, in Khan Yunis. Journalist Alaa Abu Mohsen from Egypt’s Al-Rad channel reported on the attack. “It happened on Eid al-Fitr,” a neighbor recalled. “We heard a loud explosion. The houses here are old and packed close together. When we arrived, there were wounded children everywhere, yelling and crying.” According to the neighbor, there had been no prior warning or evacuation order. A testimony posted on the “Gaza Martyrs” account on X included memories shared by relatives about the four brothers.
Islam, the eldest, was born after his parents underwent fertility treatments. “He took care of his brothers and was afraid of dying,” they said. 12-year-old Yazan (upper left) was described as “the calmest, with a sharp sense of humor.” He used to save money from holiday gifts to buy clothes he liked. “But he never woke up. He was killed in his sleep.” 8-year-old Imad had just started primary school when the war started and everyday life ended. “His personality changed after the bombings,” said relatives. “He was terrified.” And about the youngest, 3-year-old Abd al-Rahman: “Unlike most children today who are glued to screens, he loved playing with his brothers. He was endlessly curious.”
“May you reach paradise,” a relative wrote to mourn them, Twins Amal and Ayloul Salem, age 7 | Killed in Gaza City on December 11, 2023
On December 11, 2023, a series of Israeli airstrikes struck Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, hitting six homes belonging to the Salem family. According to real-time reporting by Al Jazeera, 102 civilians were killed in the attack. Palestinian journalist Younis Tirawi wrote online that “an entire neighborhood had been erased” and that “rescue teams had managed to retrieve 32 bodies so far, though it was estimated that 80 more remained buried under the rubble. “Members of the Salem family living abroad shared their grief on social media, posting photos of their lost loved ones. Among them was Hussam Salem, who lives in Turkey. He posted a picture of 7-year-old twin sisters Amal and Ayloul, who were among the victims. “These pretty twins were killed together with their grandfather, grandmother and the father of the family, Abu Basal,” he wrote. “And with over 100 people in the massacre of the Salem family. May you reach paradise.” The Israeli military declined to comment on Haaretz’s report on the incident.
Mazen was the most brilliant, Ahmad the bravest. Brothers Mazen and Ahmed Abu Assi, ages 17 and 13 | Killed near Al-Ahli Hospital on October 17, 2023.
An explosion near Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza, where many displaced civilians had taken shelter, killed brothers Mazen (photographed, right) and Ahmed Abu Assi. Several investigations have concluded that the blast was caused by a failed missile launched by Islamic Jihad, with estimated casualties ranging from 100 to 300 people. Their father, Arafat Abu Assi, told the BBC that Mazen and Ahmed were very close, though different in character. The story of their deaths gained attention partly because Mazen had been born after eight years of fertility treatments. “He was the brightest of all my children,” said the father, adding that Mazen had been in high school and dreamed of becoming a dentist. Ahmed was “the strongest and bravest in the family,” he said, remembering how the 13-year-old used to sell toys and school supplies from a small booth near their home. Now, all that remains of the family is their youngest child, 3-year-old Faraj, who keeps crying and asking where his brothers are. “I told him that God chose them to stay in heaven,” said Arafat. “That’s a better place for my two young smart gentlemen.”
12 years, 3 rounds of IVF, and one airstrike that took everything. Twins Wissam and Naeem Abu Anza, age 5 months | Killed in Rafah on March 3, 2024
Rania Abu Anza became pregnant only after 12 years and three rounds of fertility treatment. Her twins, Wissam and Naeem, were just five months old when an airstrike hit the building where they were sheltering in Rafah. Both were killed, along with their father and 11 members of their extended family. “They were all dead,” Rania told AP, “Their father took them and left me behind.” In addition to her husband and children, she also lost a sister, a nephew and a pregnant niece in the attack. According to family member Farouq Abu Anza, about 35 people were staying in the house, most of them children displaced from other areas. Everyone in the building was a civilian and none were militants, he said. Dr. Marwan al-Hams, director of the hospital where the bodies were taken, told AP that among the 14 people killed in the Abu Anza house were six children and four women. AP noted that the Israeli military “rarely comments on individual strikes, which often kill women and children.” In this case, it did not comment on the attack specifically, only saying that “follows international law and takes feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm.”
“Soul of my soul,” the grandfather mourned
Siblings Tariq and Reem Badwan, ages 5 and 3 | Killed in Nuseirat refugee camp on November 22, 2023
When the war began, Reem and Tariq’s father was in Egypt and unable to return to Gaza. The children and their mother sought shelter in the home of their grandfather, Khaled al-Nabhan, in the Nuseirat refugee camp. When the war began, Reem and Tariq’s father was in Egypt and unable to return to Gaza. The children and their mother sought shelter in the home of their grandfather, Khaled al-Nabhan, in the Nuseirat refugee camp.
In an emotional interview with CNN from the ruins of his home, Nabhan recalled his last evening with the children before they were killed in an airstrike. He broke down in tears as he remembered how they had begged to go outside and play. He had refused, fearing Israeli airstrikes. “They kept asking for fruit but there is no fruit because of the war,” he said. All he has left now, he said, were their toys and memories.
Reem’s death drew significant attention in both foreign and Arab media after a video went viral showing Nabhan kissing her lifeless body, repeating the words, “Soul of my soul.” The phrase became a powerful symbol of the unimaginable grief caused by the death of a child. Her mother, Maysa, remembered the last moments before the strike. “I heard Reem screaming next to me. I told her, ‘There’s something heavy on top of me, I can’t reach you.’ I said my final prayers and next I woke up in the hospital.” When she awoke, she learned her young children were gone. Their bodies had been found together under the rubble. “At the hospital I was just numb,” Maysa said. “I hugged them, I wanted to get as many hugs as I could. No matter how much I hugged them I didn’t get enough.”
The parents are now alone. Siblings Majid, Jury and Souheil Assouri, ages 14 and 12 | Killed in the Church of Saint Porphyrius compound in Gaza City on October 19, 2023. At the start of the war, Gaza’s oldest active church – the historic Church of Saint Porphyrius – became a shelter for hundreds of displaced Palestinians. On October 19, an Israeli airstrike hit a two-story building within the church compound. According to The Washington Post, 18 people were killed and at least 20 wounded. The Israeli military said the strike had targeted a Hamas control center and had “damaged the wall of a church in the area.” It added that it was “aware of reports on casualties” and was reviewing the incident, but declined to provide further details, stressing that “the church was not the target of the strike.” Among those killed were the Assouri siblings: 14-year-old Majid and 12-year-old twins, Souheil and Jury – a boy and a girl. “Just a few minutes separated me from my children,” their father Ramez said to felesteen.news. “My wife and I went to check in on my father, who was tired and was in the room next to the church building.” Ramez recalled that on their final day, just before relocating to the church compound, the two boys had gone to get their hair cut. Majid picked the style first, then Souheil. “We then drove home to the Sabra neighborhood and the children took a shower,” he said. “They were eager to get to the church as soon as possible.” By 5:30 in the afternoon, Ramez and his sons had returned to the church. “A few hours later, fighter jets were dropping bombs toward the room where my children and nephews were staying.” The three children were killed. Ramez and his wife are now left alone.
Of ten siblings, only one survived. Sisters Eve and Sidra Al-Najjar, ages 7 and 5 months | Killed in Khan Yunis on May 23, 2025
Sisters Eve and Sidra were among ten children in the Al-Najjar family. On May 23, 2025, they were killed along with seven of their siblings in an Israeli airstrike that hit their home in Khan Yunis. According to eyewitness accounts and reporting from the BBC and Sky News in Arabic, the children’s father, Hamdi – who, along with his wife, worked as a doctor at Nasser Hospital – had just returned home after dropping her off for her shift when the missile struck. The blast collapsed the house and ignited a fire. All children present – Yahya, Rakan, Raslan, Gebran, Eve, Rival, Saydeen, Luqman, and Sidra, all under 12 years of age – were killed. The only survivor was 11-year-old Adam (photographed, left, with his sisters). Both he and his father were critically wounded. Eyewitnesses reported that their mother collapsed when she saw her children’s bodies brought into the hospital ward where she worked. Hamdi died from his injuries on June 1. The Israeli military said at the time that “an aircraft struck several suspects identified by IDF forces as operating in a building near troops in the Khan Yunis area, a dangerous combat zone that had been evacuated of civilians in advance for their protection. The claim of harm to uninvolved individuals is being reviewed.”
This article is reproduced in its entirety