GAZA CITY, Palestine
While the world reacted with outrage to the ceremonies conducted by Hamas to return the bodies of four Israelis, including a woman and her two children held in Gaza, the bodies of thousands of Palestinian children and women remain trapped under the rubble of homes destroyed by the Israeli military during the ongoing genocide.
Despite the ceasefire agreement enacted on Jan. 19, Palestinians still struggle to recover these bodies, many reduced to bones due to the lack of necessary equipment and heavy machinery that Israel refuses to allow into Gaza. This issue has not garnered the same international attention as the return of the Israeli remains.
On Thursday, Palestinian resistance factions in Gaza handed over four coffins containing the remains of Israelis, identified as Shiri Bibas and her children Kfir and Ariel, along with prisoner Oded Lifshitz, as part of the seventh batch of the first phase of the ceasefire agreement.
Hamas addressed the families of Bibas and Livshitz in a statement, saying: “We would have preferred that your loved ones returned to you alive, but the leaders of your army and government chose to kill them, along with 17,881 Palestinian children.”
The destroyed buildings of Gaza, now mass graves, still carry the names of children who have not been recovered. For example, Palestinians wrote on one collapsed wall nearly a year ago: “The children are still under the rubble... Omar, Abdullah, and Masa.”
Torn toys from these children stand out among the rubble, serving as a stark reminder to the world that children once lived in these homes before Israel destroyed them. Israel's technological capabilities have allowed it to gather information on people inside homes before targeting them, as confirmed by human rights reports.
While the cries of children dying from Israeli gunfire and the wails of mothers mourning their lost children still echo in many minds, the world largely ignores the massacre committed against them, reducing them to statistics in human rights reports that never find their way to justice.
In light of this, Anadolu highlights some of the most poignant stories of child and women victims in the Gaza Strip that remain etched in memory.
‘Execution’ of premature babies
On Nov. 10, 2023, Israeli forces stormed Al-Nasr Children's Hospital in western Gaza City, forcing medical staff to evacuate under gunfire. Troops refused to evacuate premature infants, leading to the deaths of five babies, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry at the time.
After the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza’s Al-Nasr neighborhood, the decomposed bodies of the infants were found in their incubators and hospital beds. The military had cut off their access to life-saving treatment.
Yousef: The ‘curly hair’ boy
On Oct. 21, 2023, a devastated Palestinian mother was seen wandering the halls of a hospital in Gaza, searching for her 7-year-old son, Yousef, among the injured or deceased.
In a heartbreaking video that spread widely on social media, Yousef's mother, in shock and fear, asked the doctors if her child had passed through their care, saying: "Yousef, 7 years old, with curly hair. His is white, and sweet.”
Hours later, the mother was shocked to find her son's body in the hospital’s morgue, killed by an Israeli strike.
Reem: ‘The soul of the soul’
In Nov. 2023, an Israeli airstrike killed Reem, 3, and her brother Tarek, grandchildren of Khaled Nabhaneh, known as “Abu Diya,” who was also killed by Israel on Dec. 16, 2024.
A viral video showed the grandfather carrying Reem’s body in his arms and bidding her a touching farewell. While holding her gently, Grandpa Nabhaneh, known for his affectionate words, said: “She is the soul of the soul... the soul of the soul.”
‘Is this a dream or reality?’
In December 2023, a video surfaced showing a young Palestinian girl being pulled from the rubble, asking a doctor in disbelief: “Uncle, let me ask you: Is this a dream or is it real?”
The doctor reassured her, saying: “Don't be afraid... you're safe.” But the child, still in shock, repeated: “I know I’m safe, but tell me: Is this a dream or is it real?”
‘That’s my mom, I know her by her hair’
In October 2024, a video showed a Palestinian girl crying uncontrollably after recognizing her mother’s body among the deceased Palestinians killed by Israeli forces.
Despite attempts by medical staff to tell the girl that the body did not belong to her mother, the girl insisted, saying through tears and short breaths: “It's her... I swear it’s her. I know her by her hair.”
The child’s heart-wrenching pleas continued as she sobbed, saying: “I swear, I can’t live without you, Mom. Why did you leave me?” Later, she said her sister had also been killed with their mother, and added: “They (Israeli army) didn’t stop; they killed my grandmother, grandfather, aunt, and her children, my mom, and my sister.”
To console her, her brother told her they were martyrs. She responded, crying: “I know they are martyrs, but I can bear that. They (Israeli army) don’t show us mercy... what did we do to them?”
Hind Rajab: ‘Please come, get me’
In January 2024, an emotional phone call made by six-year-old Hind Rajab to the Palestinian Red Crescent circulated on social media. Hind, trapped in a car with her relatives who were all killed by Israeli gunfire, begged for help.
“Please come, get me,” she cried on the phone, after she informed a Red Crescent worker that an Israeli tank was nearby. Ambulances were unable to reach her due to heavy fire from Israeli forces targeting everything that moved.
For three hours, the child kept telling the Red Crescent teams she was scared, surrounded by the bodies of her relatives. Twelve days after her plea, rescue teams found her body, which had already been lifeless since the day she called for help. They also found the bodies of the two paramedics who had attempted to save her.
‘Sidra’: A body torn and stuck to the wall
In February 2024, a viral video showed the body of 7-year-old Sidra Hassouna, whose remains were torn apart and stuck to a wall after an Israeli bombing of the home where she was staying.
Sidra had been killed alongside her twin, parents, grandmother, grandfather, and uncle in the Israeli strike on a house they had fled to from northern Gaza.
Sidra, a child known for her love of dressing up and whose laughter once filled the room, had her body torn by Israel in a horrifying way that will never be forgotten.
‘The father of the soul’
In March 2024, a video showed a Palestinian woman holding one of her twin children, who had been killed along with her husband in an Israeli airstrike. With tears in her eyes, she lamented that her husband had been planning to bring diapers and milk for the twins.
Holding her dead child, she said: “His eye was teary... we took him to the doctor, and they told us to massage him.” She then tearfully added: “This is the father of the soul, the father of the rose, the heartbeat of my heart.”
In another video, she held both twins in her arms, crying, and said: “The rose father, you’re gone... my heart.” She asked the other twin, “You left too, Soso?”
Killing of twins and their mother
In August 2024, Israeli forces killed Palestinian twins Aysel (female) and Aser (male) along with their mother in an Israeli airstrike on the house they had fled to after just three days of life, even before their birth certificates could be issued.
A ceasefire deal took effect last month, halting Israel’s genocidal war, which has killed at least 48,300 people, mostly women and children, and left the enclave in ruins.
Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for 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 on the enclave.
