GAZA CITY, Palestine / ISTANBUL

Every moment, 5-year-old Ward al-Sheikh calls out the names of her siblings, hoping that she will get an answer.

The Palestinian child was asleep, along with her mother, father, and six siblings, when Israeli warplanes struck the Fahmi al-Jirhawi School in Gaza City Monday overnight.

At least 31 displaced people, including 18 children and six women, were burned to death, and scores were injured in the fire caused by the Israeli strike.

Among the victims were Ward’s mother and her five siblings. Her father and a sixth brother are in intensive care after they were critically injured in the attack.

“All my brothers and sisters are dead,” the young girl told Anadolu, as tears rolled down her cheeks.

“They are all gone. I wish we could get back together.”

Her little eyes are still looking everywhere for a familiar face after she was pulled out of the school after the Israeli attack.

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Ward returned to the school with her uncle Eyad in the hope of hearing good news about her family, but found nothing except rubble and the ashes of burned bodies.

Tears started to flow down her face when she found two shoes, one for her mother and one for a sibling.

“I was buried under the rubble after the attack,” the Palestinian child recalled.

Pointing to her injuries and burns, she said: “I woke up and saw a big fire; the fire was so strong.

“Mohammed, Abd, Amal, Silwan, Marie,” the little girl named her deceased siblings.

The child said she saw her father lying in an ambulance after the Israeli attack.

Eyad, her uncle, said Ward’s family had to shelter in the school after an Israeli attack on their home in the course of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

Hours after the attack, when Eyad finally had a chance to arrive at the school at sunrise, he was shocked and devastated by the charred and dismembered bodies of his brother’s family that were retrieved from the rubble.

The Israeli army confirmed the strike, claiming the presence of Hamas gunmen inside the school. It, however, did not provide any proof to support its claim.  

Lost childhood

A year and a half of Ward’s five-year lifetime had passed under 600 days of Israeli attacks that have caused massive destruction across Gaza.

Like over one million Palestinian children in Gaza, Ward experienced homelessness and displacement more than once amid deadly Israeli attacks chasing them every day.

The young child didn’t have a chance to engage in any educational or recreational activities that would promote her mental and physical development and growth.

Rather, she had to pass her childhood days with the sound of explosions, constant fear, and hunger that ravaged the bodies of tens of thousands of Gaza children.

Israel has kept Gaza crossings closed to food, medical, and humanitarian aid since March 2, deepening an already severe humanitarian crisis in the enclave, according to government, human rights, and international reports.

According to Gaza’s government media office, more than 1,600 Palestinian children have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since October 2023.

Rejecting international calls for a ceasefire, the Israeli army has pursued a brutal offensive against Gaza since October 2023, killing over 54,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children.

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war crimes against defenseless civilians in the enclave.