Kids of The Gaza Holocaust

CrossFireArabia
Features
October 7, 2024

By Nour Dawood

Since October 2023, when Israel launched its genocidal war in Gaza, over 16,800 children have been killed. Behind each staggering statistic lies a name, a face, a story. These children had dreams, hopes, families who loved them, and futures that will never unfold. Israel may claim military objectives, but the reality on the ground reveals children at the heart of its devastation.

Here, we honor the stories of 20 children whose lives were brutally cut short. Their stories have been pieced together through interviews with their families, social media posts, and news reports. These are not just numbers. They are names, stories, and tragedies that must not be forgotten.

Aya and Aboud Abu Oun (6 and 5 years old)

Siblings Aya and Aboud Abu Oun were killed on October 17. Their mother, Asmaa Mughari, shared their memory with heartbreaking tributes on social media. Aboud, her youngest, had picked out a jacket he was excited to wear but never got the chance. His love for drawing was so strong that the family kept searching the rubble of their home, hoping to find any of his sketches. “I keep asking them if they found anything,” Asmaa shared.

In another post, Asmaa celebrated Aya’s first graduation certificate. “It was your first achievement in school, and I’m so proud of you—both in life and in death,” she wrote, expressing the unbearable pride and loss every parent hopes never to experience.

Hind Rajab (6 years old)

On January 29, six-year-old Hind Rajab was killed when an Israeli tank fired at her family’s car in Tal Al-Hawa. According to the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), forensic evidence confirmed that the shots came from close range. Hind was trapped among the bodies of her family members for hours, crying for help over the phone in her final moments.

Her mother, Wissam Hamadah, shared the agony of not being able to save her. “My sweetheart, I couldn’t reach you. Forgive me,” she tearfully recounted. Hind’s body was recovered days later, along with two paramedics who had been killed while trying to rescue her.

Juman Fahem Husnin (13 years old)

Juman was a bright, ambitious 13-year-old who excelled in school and Islamic studies, even memorizing the Quran. She had dreams, especially of peace, hoping for a day when her family would be reunited without the fear of war. On her birthday, December 1, she expressed this wish, but just six days later, an Israeli missile struck her home, killing her, her two sisters, Yaman and Bisan, and wiping out most of her family.

Her aunt shared a deeply emotional tribute: “The missile erased them from our civil registry, but not from our hearts. Juman’s smile, her kind eyes, remain untouched, even by war.”

Mohammed and Zeina Hijazi (4 and 2 years old)

Mohammed and Zeina Hijazi were displaced from their home in northern Gaza to Deir Al-Balah, seeking refuge from relentless bombings. But even in displacement, they found no safety. On December 23, Israeli airstrikes killed both children. Their father remembered Mohammed’s love for simple joys—cake on his birthday, mulukhiyah, and shawarma. “He was so excited to start kindergarten, but instead, he joined the kindergarten of paradise.”

Zeina, only two years old, adored her older brother. She would often tease him by pulling his hair, but they were inseparable. “When Zeina took her first steps, Mohammed was the one who excitedly shared the news with our family,” their father recalled. “Now, they walk together in paradise.”

Laya Naim (3 years old)

Laya was a lively three-year-old with a love for staying up late, dancing, and playing in the water. On January 6, she was killed in Gaza City by an Israeli airstrike. Her mother, Asma Naim, shared her grief through poignant words: “You loved everything about life—parties, swimming, strawberries. I can’t grasp that you’re gone.”

The memory of Laya’s blue dress, her messy hair, and her infectious joy lives on in her mother’s heart. “You loved your father so much, and you looked just like him,” Asma shared, her pain reflected in every word.

Yousef Abu Mousa (7 years old)

Known for his big heart and his habit of initiating family group hugs, Yousef was a joyful presence in his home. His father remembers how Yousef would always ask about his work hours and excitedly greet him when he came home. “Every time I went to work, he’d run to me, hug me, and kiss me. He was always the first one there,” his father shared.

On October 15, an Israeli airstrike hit their family home, taking Yousef’s young life. His father’s pain is immeasurable: “I lost everything, but the biggest loss was my son Yousef.”

Habiba Abd El-Qader (9 years old)

Habiba, a talented young girl, excelled at school and loved painting. She had dreams of becoming a doctor, but those dreams were destroyed when an Israeli airstrike hit her home on October 25. Her mother, Feda’a Murjan, begged for an end to the bloodshed. “Please stop all of this. My Habiba is gone, and I don’t want more mothers to go through this pain.”

Abdullah and Mahmoud Abu Salima (15 years old)

Twins Abdullah and Mahmoud were avid soccer players with dreams of representing Palestine on the national team. Abdullah hoped to become a defender, while Mahmoud aspired to be a goalkeeper. Their connection was more than just brotherly love—they shared the same passion, the same goals. Mahmoud would often proudly declare that he was “seconds” older than his brother.

On October 23, their dreams were shattered when an airstrike killed both boys, their mother, and several other family members.

Reem Nabhan (3 years old)

Reem was the apple of her grandfather Khaled’s eye. He lovingly called her “the soul of the soul” and, even during the war, would bike long distances just to get her favorite foods like ketchup. “Reem was a part of my life,” Khaled told Anadolu Agency, his voice breaking as he recounted how an Israeli airstrike struck their home.

“I found myself buried under the rubble,” he said. “I suffered bruises, and my daughter was injured, but worst of all, we lost Reem and Tariq, my beloved grandchildren. My other son and daughter were also wounded.”

His dreams of seeing Reem grow up, go to university, and turn to him for advice on her future were shattered. “She was my light,” he added.

Salma Jaber (4 years old)

Salma was the spirited middle child between her older sister, Sarah, and her younger brother, Omar. On December 5, as their family tried to flee northern Gaza for safety, Salma ran towards her father, a photographer working for UNRWA, when she was shot and killed. “My three-year-old son, Omar, still asks me where Salma is,” Hussein Jaber told Al Jazeera. “He doesn’t understand how she could have been walking beside him, and now she’s just gone.”

Her absence haunts the family as they struggle to explain the incomprehensible to a child who can only remember her as a constant, loving presence.

Mahmoud Al-Dahdouh (15 years old)

Affectionately called “Little Wael” after his father, veteran Al Jazeera correspondent Wael Al-Dahdouh, Mahmoud was determined to follow in his father’s footsteps. During the war, he and his sister Kholoud posted videos documenting Gaza’s suffering, pleading for help. “There is no safe place in Gaza. This is the fiercest war we’ve ever known,” they said in one video.

On October 25, Mahmoud’s life was cut short along with his mother, his seven-year-old sister, Sham, and his infant nephew, Adam, in an Israeli airstrike on Nuseirat refugee camp. Twenty-one others perished with them.

Mahmoud’s dream of becoming a journalist and sharing Gaza’s story with the world died that day, but his voice lives on through the videos he courageously shared.

Lauren Al-Koumi (2 years old)

Lauren was the “long-awaited joy” of her family. Her uncle, Akram Hassan, mourned the niece he adored before ever holding her. “For the first and last time, I became an uncle. Lauren’s laughter stole our hearts. She was the family’s fruit, as her grandfather lovingly called her.”

Lauren’s potential was limitless. “She might have grown up to be an engineer like her father, or a teacher like her mother. She could have been a beauty icon, but the oppressive machinery of the occupier stole her from us.”

Akram’s heartache pours through his words as he reflects on all the moments he’ll never share with his beloved niece.

Yousef Shahada (5 years old)

Yousef, known for his striking green eyes, was just starting kindergarten when his life was cut short. He was killed along with his mother Du’aa and his only brother Musab, and their father followed them as a martyr ten months later.

Yousef’s mother, devastated by her loss, spoke through tears. “He’s not a number. My son has a name. People must know the names of our martyrs.”

Tala Abu Ajwa (10 years old)

Tala was just a child, joyfully playing outside in her pink roller skates when tragedy struck. Her father, Hussam, recounted the devastating moment: “At 5 p.m., Tala finally convinced her mother to let her go outside. A few minutes later, two massive explosions rocked our building. I rushed downstairs, and the first thing I saw was her pink roller skate, barely visible under the rubble.”

Tala was covered in blood, struggling for her last breath. The pink roller skate, once a symbol of her innocent joy, became a haunting reminder of what the war had taken from her family.

Khaled Al-Shawa (17 years old)

Khaled was riding his bike when he was killed in a targeted attack meant for Al Jazeera journalist Ismail al-Ghoul and cameraman Rami al-Rifi. His mother’s voice cracked as she spoke to Al Jazeera: “He’s not a number. My son has a name, and everyone must know it.”

Khaled wasn’t just a victim of war; he was a boy who cared for his family and neighbors. Every day, he carried food in his backpack to deliver to an elderly neighbor and his injured son, a small act of kindness that now carries the weight of an unimaginable loss.

Ziad Sidam (3 years old)

Ziad was just 3 years old when an Israeli airstrike tore through his family home in the Nuseirat refugee camp. His father, consumed by grief, shared his heart-wrenching final moments. “I tried to protect you, son, but I couldn’t. I did everything I could, but it wasn’t enough.”

As Ziad’s father rushed him to the hospital, he realized his son was dying in the car. “Tell God how scared you were when the bombs fell, Ziad. Tell Him everything, my love. You used to talk about everything.”

These stories are just a fraction of the thousands of children whose lives have been stolen. These children are not numbers. They are stories, memories, and bright futures that Israel has erased. We will continue to say their names, share their stories, and never allow their humanity to be lost in the statistics.

This article is reprinted from the Quds News Network

CrossFireArabia

Dr. Marwan Asmar holds a PhD from Leeds University and is a freelance writer specializing on the Middle East. He has worked as a journalist since the early 1990s in Jordan and the Gulf countries, and been widely published, including at Albawaba, Gulf News, Al Ghad, World Press Review and others.

Features

Wounders of Arabic

CrossFireArabia
February 20, 2026

EDITOR’S NOTE: I wrote this article “On Arabic” in 2008 and posted on hackwriters.com. I am reprinting it here for relvance and archival use

Compared with English, Arabic is an easy read if it is written well. When you look at English, the perception of the language, written and oral, took centuries of development from archaic structures associated with the old English of Geoffrey Chaucer, passing to Shakespeare and Christopher Marlow to George Elliot, Charles Dickens, Virginia Wolfe as well as many others and not mentioning the new contemporaries.

With Arabic it’s different. Although there may have been stages of development through out the centuries, it seems the clarity of the Arabic language was a one-time affair, represented in the Holy Koran brought down from the skies through Angel Gabriel to Prophet Mohammad in the 7th century and passed on to the Muslim community.

The Koran represented a basis for the Arabic language as it is spoken and written today. Unlike English, back in the 7th century Arabic was written in a clear, transparent, effective tone that involved action, and designed from every member of the social community, rich and poor, educated and illiterate, a source of knowledge and speech and continued to be so as it passed down through the centuries.

With English it was different. First if all, the language itself was derivative from other linguistic structures like Germanic, Latin, and French, many of which have said this is what made it stronger; Secondly English was helped by the issue of economic development as new inventions, processes and way of doing things required the development of new words, terminologies and syntax which evolved from the 17th century onwards.

Today some have been known to criticize Arabic for failing to be innovative, or developing to meet the needs of modernization and even globalization, with its inability to produce new words and terminologies to pace with the development going on in the region and the world.

However, one of the points that has to be clarified is that as these inventions came from the western countries and as communicated in English, the language proved more flexible in coming up with new words and terms, as opposed to the Arabic language that adopted a reactive approach with linguists from the region acting haphazardly in their word formations rather than following a methodical pattern.

In the process as well, we tend to get used to hearing the words and terminologies in say the English language and when we hear their equivalents in other languages such as Arabic, as there is a sense of word creation even in translations, it becomes odd and foreign simply because our ears have got used to the English pronunciation.

But this is a different view related to globalization, how much are we as Arabs integrated into the international system, how much we take from it, what do we take, what do we buy, our consumer habits and trends and indeed, how much do we produce and contribute to world society.

While this in turn becomes related to our language, its use, how much we mix words, English-Arabic, Arabic-English, the fact of the matter is that the language itself, spoken by about 300 million people in 22 Arab countries and about a 1.5 billion in Muslim countries who read the Koran in Arabic, says a great deal.

Arabic is a cogent force, its simple, attractive and gets the point across in as a logical manner as possible. It’s easy to read and to understand. It’s structure is less complex as say French and German which are grammatically more demanding than the English language.

However, just like any other language, writing in Arabic has to be learnt, it’s a professional skill; that’s why today there is an endless beating about the bush were getting the idea across is deliberately pumped and inflated and there is much hankering because of political considerations relating to ruler, government, state, security apparatuses and so on.

These considerations are over-riding and smack directly with the professionalism of writing and the way the writing of Arabic should be as passed on and continued through out the holy Koran which is sometimes used as a source of criticism by western writers and pedagogics who claim the Arabic language lacks the basis for producing new words as do the other languages.

But when Arabic is spoken and written as part of the social community there is a sense of modernist continuum as expressed in its words, expressions, figures of speech and syntax found in the structure of the language.

Nowhere is this more emphasized than it is in the Koran. Written in the 7th century, the Koran is timeless in its spiritual message, a modernist document in its approach with words, phrases and expressions that apply as much today as when it was handed down, memorized and collectively written.

Words and expression apply as much then as they apply today. The word “car” for instance is used in one of its Suras (chapters) to signify a caravan route whereas its use today implies a vehicle, and striking the reader as if you are reading a modern document about social relations, economy, authority, and kinship.

The style of language appears to be modernist as well and not with case as it is say with the Bible that is written in old English, not as old as the language used by Chaucer, but is hard to fathom just the same.

That has proved problematic for the Koran. When translated into English translators often use the kind of language that is employed by the Bible, which does not reflect the actual modernist style of the Koran for the lucidness of the holy document becomes lost and replaced by an archaic and medieval structure once found in the language, although English has moved on tremendously.

Features

Dad Digs For Family After Israel Bombs Their House

CrossFireArabia
February 15, 2026

Hammad’s house in the Sabra neighborhood was destroyed Dec. 6, 2023, during heavy Israeli bombardment. He said a powerful bomb weighing around 2,000 pounds (907 kilograms) struck the building while the family was inside.

On a mound of sand and shattered concrete that once formed the foundation of his six-story home in Gaza City, Mahmoud Hammad digs methodically through the debris, searching for the remains of his wife and children killed beneath the rubble.

Armed with little more than a small shovel and a metal sieve, the 45-year-old father filters sand by hand, hoping to find bone fragments that would allow him to lay his family to rest.

“In the absence of machinery, this is what we have,” he said, holding up the sieve.

Home reduced to dust

He lost his wife, six children, his brother, his brother’s wife and their four children.

Hammad survived but sustained severe injuries, including multiple rib fractures and injuries to his shoulder and pelvis. After months of partial recovery, he returned to the site to begin searching for his family’s remains.

“I wanted to bury them properly,” he said.

With the help of neighbors, he managed to retrieve and bury his brother and his brother’s family. But the bodies of his wife and children remain under layers of hardened debris.

“I collect what I can, piece by piece,” he said.

Missing under the rubble

Nearly 9,500 Palestinians are missing beneath destroyed buildings across the territory, according to official estimates in Gaza.

Officials said recovery efforts are severely hindered by the lack of heavy equipment needed to clear the debris. Despite a ceasefire that took effect in October, authorities said the entry of large-scale machinery remains restricted, limiting the ability of rescue teams to reach buried bodies.

Civil defense crews have repeatedly warned that the longer debris remains uncleared, the harder it becomes to recover remains.

Private grief amid mass destruction

Hammad said his wife was pregnant and close to delivery when the strike occurred, as medical services across Gaza were collapsing under the strain of the war.

“She and our unborn child died together,” he said.

Since December, Gaza has been battered by repeated storms that further displaced families living in makeshift shelters after their homes were destroyed.

For Hammad, however, the focus remains on the ruins before him.

Each day, he returns to sift through dust and fragments of concrete, driven by what he describes as a simple duty.

“They deserve to be buried with dignity,” he said.

At least 591 Palestinians have been killed and more than 1,598 injured in Israeli attacks since a ceasefire deal took effect Oct. 10, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

‏Israel’s war on Gaza, which began Oct. 8, 2023, and lasted two years, has killed more than 72,000 Palestinians and wounded over 171,000, most of them women and children, and destroyed about 90% of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure.

By Tarek Chouiref in Istanbul for Anadolu

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