Aaed Abu Karsh, from running a shawarma place to scrounging for food to feed his own family

The New York Times reports:
“Aaed Abu Karsh, 35, had managed to carve out a sliver of something like normal life when we first spoke to him last November.

“He was managing a shawarma place in Deir al Balah, one of the few places where ordinary life went on amid the agony all around it.”

“In January, during the cease-fire, he moved home to Gaza City. That was the last good thing that happened, he told us recently.”

Karsh lost his wife’s sister to an airstrike in June and his uncle to another strike in September. He has been displaced four times and wounded twice. 

“The hardest thing is living with the feeling that all you can do is wait for death,” he said.

He no longer sells shawarma to eager customers. Instead, he spends his days scrounging for food, clean water and cash to pay the astronomical prices at the markets.

Karsh was one of nearly 100 people whom Times reporters interviewed recently after writing about them earlier in the war.

More at The New York Times

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

Hammam Malaka and his wife, Najia Malaka, reunited after a long separation but fighting to survive

New York Times reporters say they have interviewed more than 700 people in Gaza over the course of the war. Recently they tried to recontact as many of the people they spoke with earlier.

Among the nearly hundred they were able to reach are Hammam Malaka and his wife, Najia Malaka. The first time the Times wrote about them, they were stuck 20 miles apart, one in northern Gaza, one in southern Gaza, with Israeli troops in between. He had two of their small children, she had three.

They were able to find each other during a brief January ceasefire. But one of their children, three-year-old Seela, was killed before they reunited. 

Since Israel broke the cease-fire in March, the Times reports,  their days have been spent in a perpetual struggle against hunger and danger, which Mr. Malaka said were like “endless waves crashing over us.”

More, including a recent photo of the surviving members of the Malaka family, at The New York Times

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

Khitam Ayyad, a refugee from Gaza City, reached an Israeli “humanitarian zone” but did not find the promised aid

From the New York Times:
As Israel’s full-scale assault in Gaza City began last month, Khitam Ayyad fled from her home there barefoot and without her possessions, heading to an area in southern Gaza that the Israeli military had designated as a “humanitarian zone.”

The military said that tents, food and medical care would be provided to those fleeing the fighting in the north.

But when Ms. Ayyad reached the southern city of Khan Younis, one of the humanitarian areas, she said she found it overcrowded with desperate people who were being offered little help.

“We are exposed to the sun and the heat,” she said. There was no space for her to build a shelter, she added, and “no proper food or water.”

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

Nahidh Abdelsalam, 56, two of his sons have been killed

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 currently that sailed to Gaza in a civil disobedience effort to break the Israeli siege.

More at 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

Siraj, 10, stalked by an Israeli quadcopter

The Australian Broadcasting Company profiled 10-year-old Siraj Mohamed, living in a tent with his parents. They reported:

“[H]is days are filled with fear. At times it’s overwhelming, like the night he was stalked by a quadcopter while going to the bathroom. They look like recreational drones but can reportedly have bombs or guns attached. There are multiple reports of them firing at children.

“‘I stood still, I looked at the ground, I saw the red and blue lights,’ Siraj recalls. ‘Then I held the flashlight, pointed into the ground and ran back to the tent.’

“We asked the IDF about their use of quadcopters but they didn’t respond.

“That night changed Siraj, his mother Halima says. He refused to go back to his own bed. He curled up next to her and held her hair while he slept.”

More at Australian Broadcasting Company

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

Ruwaida Amer: “I am a person. I am not a number.”

Last April 6, Al Jazeera published a column by a young woman named Ruwaida Amer about the shock of war suddenly entering her life. 

It begins: “I’ve been thinking about writing a will.”

And it ends: “Is it possible that all it would say on my shroud would be ‘a young woman in a black/blue blouse’? Could I die as an ‘unknown person’, just a number?”

More at Al Jazeera

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

Yousef al-Mashharawi, Gaza City photographer and film-maker: “I have nowhere else to go.”

Yousef al-Mashharawi is a 32-year-old photographer and film-maker with two daughters and a son. They are sheltering with family in the Nasser district of Gaza City, but the risks of remaining are rising steeply.

“The fighter jets and helicopters do not stop firing. Last night was terrifying. The bombing has not stopped for the past six days. Every 45 minutes to an hour, there is a strike very close by,” Mashharawi told The Guardian. But he has no plans to leave.

“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.

“Displacement also takes a psychological toll. No one likes to be displaced. I believe there is no truly safe area in the strip, whether in the north or the south, so we prefer to stay in the north. Death only comes once.”

More at The Guardian

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

Fatima al-Zahra Sahweil, “running from death to death”

Fatima al-Zahra Sahweil, weighing the danger of staying in Gaza City with her four children against the danger of leaving

Israeli bombs shake the ground under Fatima al-Zahra Sahweil and her four children in Gaza City but fleeing could expose them to worse.

“I don’t own a tent to give us shelter, and they are too expensive to buy. I would not be able to take all of the belongings and supplies I have already bought several times before,” Sahweil said. “Then there is the suffering we would face in searching for water and the lack of empty spaces to stay in. So if I leave, I would simply be going into the unknown.”

She says her family has already been displaced 19 times.

“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? What difference would that make?”

More at The Guardian

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

Sila Husu, 7, head injured by shrapnel, needs complex medical treatment that Gaza hospital can’t provide

Aya Husu, a 39-year-old mother of six from Gaza City, told a field researcher from B’Tselem about the severe injury her seven-year-old daughter, Sila, sustained in the bombing of a shelter on July 27, 2024.

Aya and her children had moved south early in the war under orders of the Israeli military. Her husband stayed behind to take care of elderly parents who could not relocate.

Aya and her children had to move several times, enduring terrible conditions which she describes. But on July 27, things seemed to be looking up.

“I had my daughter Sila registered for classes in a tent near the shelter. She was ecstatic. She took her schoolbag, and went there with her friends. At around 11:00 A.M., the school we were staying in was bombed with several missiles. I began screaming and crying in fear for my children. Moments later, I saw Sila returning from the tent school to the shelter. She was sobbing and asking why they were bombing us. All my children screamed and cried. Around us were dead bodies, body parts, rubble and debris.

“About an hour later, the Israeli military ordered us to evacuate the school. I took my children and fled. On the way out, we saw children’s bodies, body parts, and ambulances carrying the wounded. As we tried to escape, the school was bombed again, and Sila was hit in the head by shrapnel. Her head was covered in blood. I hugged her and screamed for help. My son Muhammad took off his shirt and tried to bandage Sila’s head to stop the bleeding. I shouted for an ambulance, but no one paid attention.

“A young man came, took Sila from me, and ran with her toward the hospital. The children and I ran after him, until he handed her to an ambulance that evacuated her to Shuhadaa al-Aqsa Hospital. When I arrived there, I found Sila in the ER, critically injured. Her skull was open, and she had a fracture in the bone above her right eye and a detached retina in that eye. She stayed like that for a whole day with only an IV, without any doctor examining her, because the hospital was overwhelmed with so many wounded and dead. Later, she had surgery to stop the bleeding and close the skull fracture, and a platinum plate was implanted in her forehead above her right eye.

“Sila is still at Shuhadaa al-Aqsa Hospital. Her wounds are infected, and the hospital doesn’t have the antibiotics she needs. She needs more head surgeries to prevent fluid from leaking through her nose or eye socket. The doctors say her condition is serious and complicated, and that she needs treatment outside Gaza, but there is almost no way to get out of Gaza today.

“I try to stop her from looking at herself in pictures or in a mirror, because it affects her psychologically, especially when she sees old photos of herself. She asks when her hair will grow back, when she’ll be able to open her eye, when she’ll be pretty again.”

The B’Tselem researcher recorded this testimony on August 25.

More at B’Tselem

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