Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility
Israeli Strikes on Gaza Leave Children Without Parents and Parents Without Children
gvw_ap_news
By Associated Press
Published 8 months ago on
August 14, 2024

Palestinians mourn their 4-day-old twin relatives, killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, as he holds their birth certificates, at a hospital morgue in Deir al-Balah, Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. (AP/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Share

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Reem Abu Hayyah, just three months old, was the only member of her family to survive an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip late Monday. A few miles (kilometers) to the north, Mohamed Abuel-Qomasan lost his wife and their twin babies — just four days old — in another strike.

More than 10 months into its war with Hamas, Israel’s relentless bombardment of the isolated territory has wiped out extended families. It has left parents without children and children without parents or siblings.

And some of the sole survivors are so young they will have no memory of those they lost.

The Israeli strike late Monday destroyed a home near the southern city of Khan Younis, killing 10 people. The dead included Abu Hayyah’s parents and five siblings, ranging in age from 5 to 12, as well as the parents of three other children. All four children were wounded in the strike.

“There is no one left except this baby,” said her aunt, Soad Abu Hayyah. “Since this morning, we have been trying to feed her formula, but she does not accept it, because she is used to her mother’s milk.”

Strikes Kill Families

The strike that killed Abuel-Qomasan’s wife and newborns — a boy, Asser, and a girl, Ayssel — also killed the twins’ maternal grandmother. As he sat in a hospital, stunned into near-silence by the loss, he held up the twins’ birth certificates.

His wife, Joumana Arafa, a pharmacist, had given birth by cesarean section four days ago and announced the twins’ arrival on Facebook. On Tuesday, he had gone to register the births at a local government office. While he was there, neighbors called to say the home where he was sheltering, near the central city of Deir al-Balah, had been bombed.

“I don’t know what happened,” he said. “I am told it was a shell that hit the house.”

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the strikes.

The Health Ministry in Gaza said 115 newborns have been killed in the territory since the war began.

The military says it tries to avoid harming Palestinian civilians, and blames their deaths on Hamas because the militants operate in dense residential areas, sometimes sheltering in and launching attacks from homes, schools, mosques and other civilian buildings.

But the army rarely comments on individual strikes, which often kill women and children. Gaza’s Health Ministry says nearly 40,000 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war, without saying how many were fighters.

Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250 in the Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel that ignited the war. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has often said that “they killed parents in front of their children and children in front of their parents” to illustrate the brutality of the attack, most recently in his July address to the United States Congress.

Israel’s offensive has left thousands of orphans — so many that local doctors employ an acronym when registering them: WCNSF, or “wounded child, no surviving family.” The United Nations estimated in February that some 17,000 children in Gaza are now unaccompanied, and the number is likely to have grown since.

The Abu Hayyah family was sheltering in an area that Israel had ordered people to evacuate in recent days. It was one of several such orders that have led hundreds of thousands to seek shelter in an Israeli-declared humanitarian zone consisting of squalid, crowded tent camps along the coast.

Majority of Gaza Fled Their Homes

The vast majority of Gaza’s population has fled their homes, often multiple times. The coastal strip, which is just 25 miles (40 kilometers) long by about 7 miles (11 kilometers) wide, has been completely sealed off by Israeli forces since May.

Around 84% of Gaza’s territory has been placed under evacuation orders by the Israeli military, according to the United Nations.

Many families have ignored the evacuation orders because they say nowhere feels safe, or because they are unable to make the arduous journey on foot, or because they fear they will never be able to return to their homes, even after the war.

Abuel-Qomasan and his wife had heeded orders to evacuate Gaza City in the opening weeks of the war. They sought shelter in central Gaza, as the army had instructed.

RELATED TOPICS:

DON'T MISS

First California EV Mandates Hit Automakers This Year. Most Are Not Even Close

DON'T MISS

Clovis Teen Bicyclist Dies After Being Hit Near Bullard and Temperance

DON'T MISS

New Kaweah Health Clinic Is Coming to Woodlake

DON'T MISS

Israeli Strike on Gaza Apartment Building Kills at Least 23, Officials Say

DON'T MISS

Senate Confirms Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as Trump’s Ambassador to Israel

DON'T MISS

Wall Street’s Euphoria Sends Stocks Soaring After Trump Pauses Most of His Tariffs

DON'T MISS

New Mexico Governor Mobilizes National Guard to Tackle Crime Emergency in Albuquerque

DON'T MISS

This Is Fresno Unified’s Last Chance to Get It Right: Editorial

DON'T MISS

California Youth Soccer Coach Accused of Killing 13-Year-Old, Assaulting Other Teens

DON'T MISS

Kash Patel Has Been Replaced by Army Secretary Driscoll as Acting Head of the ATF

DON'T MISS

Dow Surges 2,600 as US Stocks Soar in Relief After Trump Pauses Some of His Tariffs

UP NEXT

New Kaweah Health Clinic Is Coming to Woodlake

UP NEXT

Israeli Strike on Gaza Apartment Building Kills at Least 23, Officials Say

UP NEXT

Senate Confirms Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as Trump’s Ambassador to Israel

UP NEXT

Wall Street’s Euphoria Sends Stocks Soaring After Trump Pauses Most of His Tariffs

UP NEXT

New Mexico Governor Mobilizes National Guard to Tackle Crime Emergency in Albuquerque

UP NEXT

This Is Fresno Unified’s Last Chance to Get It Right: Editorial

UP NEXT

California Youth Soccer Coach Accused of Killing 13-Year-Old, Assaulting Other Teens

UP NEXT

Kash Patel Has Been Replaced by Army Secretary Driscoll as Acting Head of the ATF

UP NEXT

Dow Surges 2,600 as US Stocks Soar in Relief After Trump Pauses Some of His Tariffs

UP NEXT

Trump Pauses Tariffs on Most Nations for 90 Days, Raises Taxes on Chinese Imports

Senate Confirms Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as Trump’s Ambassador to Israel

55 minutes ago

Wall Street’s Euphoria Sends Stocks Soaring After Trump Pauses Most of His Tariffs

58 minutes ago

New Mexico Governor Mobilizes National Guard to Tackle Crime Emergency in Albuquerque

1 hour ago

This Is Fresno Unified’s Last Chance to Get It Right: Editorial

2 hours ago

California Youth Soccer Coach Accused of Killing 13-Year-Old, Assaulting Other Teens

2 hours ago

Kash Patel Has Been Replaced by Army Secretary Driscoll as Acting Head of the ATF

2 hours ago

Dow Surges 2,600 as US Stocks Soar in Relief After Trump Pauses Some of His Tariffs

4 hours ago

Trump Pauses Tariffs on Most Nations for 90 Days, Raises Taxes on Chinese Imports

5 hours ago

Wired Wednesday: Fresno DA Warns New Copper Theft Ordinance Could Clash with State Law

5 hours ago

No Joke. Jay Leno Helps Fresno Legislator Advance Car Bill

5 hours ago

Clovis Teen Bicyclist Dies After Being Hit Near Bullard and Temperance

A 13-year-old boy riding his bicycle was struck and killed by a vehicle Tuesday evening in Clovis, authorities said. Agamjodh Singh Cheema, ...

2 minutes ago

2 minutes ago

Clovis Teen Bicyclist Dies After Being Hit Near Bullard and Temperance

8 minutes ago

New Kaweah Health Clinic Is Coming to Woodlake

Palestinians hurls a stone at Israeli forces following a military raid in the West Bank refugee camp of Balata, on Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP/Majdi Mohammed)
14 minutes ago

Israeli Strike on Gaza Apartment Building Kills at Least 23, Officials Say

55 minutes ago

Senate Confirms Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as Trump’s Ambassador to Israel

58 minutes ago

Wall Street’s Euphoria Sends Stocks Soaring After Trump Pauses Most of His Tariffs

1 hour ago

New Mexico Governor Mobilizes National Guard to Tackle Crime Emergency in Albuquerque

2 hours ago

This Is Fresno Unified’s Last Chance to Get It Right: Editorial

Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman speaks at a news conference in Los Angeles, Monday, March 10, 2025. (AP File)
2 hours ago

California Youth Soccer Coach Accused of Killing 13-Year-Old, Assaulting Other Teens

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend