“My children, my children”: A family in Gaza was killed minutes before the ceasefire | News of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Khan Yunis, Gaza Strip, Palestine – the Ceasefire in Gaza It was supposed to start at 8.30am (06:30 GMT). The Al Qudra family has endured 15 months of Israeli attacks. They have been displaced more than once and live in a tent. Their relatives were among more than 46,900 Palestinians killed by Israel.

But Al Qudra survived. They wanted to return home.

Ahmed Al-Qudra carried his seven children on a donkey cart and headed to the east of Khan Yunis. Finally, travel became safe, and the bombing was supposed to stop.

But the family did not know that the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas had been delayed. Little did they know that even in those few extra hours, Israeli planes were still flying over the skies of Gaza, ready to drop their bombs.

The explosion was strong. Hanan, Ahmed’s wife, heard it. She had stayed at a relative’s house in the city center, organizing their belongings, planning to join her husband and children a few hours later.

“I felt like the explosion hit my heart,” Hanan said. She instinctively knew that something had happened to her children, whom she had just said goodbye to.

“My children, my children!” I shouted.

The cart was hit. Hanan’s eldest son, Adly, 16 years old, died. So was the youngest, Sama, who was six years old, the baby of the family.

Yasmine, 12 years old, explained that a four-wheel-drive car was standing in front of the vehicle carrying people celebrating the ceasefire. This may have been the reason for the missile’s fall.

Yasmine said: “I saw Sama and Adly lying on the ground, and my father bleeding and losing consciousness on the cart.” She took out her eight-year-old sister, Aseel, before a second missile hit where they were. Eleven-year-old Mohammed also survived.

But Ahmed, Hanan’s life partner, was pronounced dead in the hospital.

“My children were my world”

Hanan was sitting on the edge of her injured daughter Iman’s bed in Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, and she was still in shock.

“Where was the ceasefire?” I asked. In their excitement to finally return to what was left of their home, the family did not notice Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement that the Palestinian Hamas movement had not sent the names of the three Israeli prisoners who will be released on Sunday as part of their release process. Ceasefire agreement.

They did not see Hamas clarify that there were technical reasons for the delay, and that the names would be provided. As they were in the end.

Little did they know that within three hours before the eventual ceasefire began, three members of their family would be killed. She was Among the 19 Palestinians martyred by Israel During the past few hours, according to the Civil Defense in Gaza.

Hanan collapsed in tears. She will now have to face life without her husband and two of her children. The loss of Sama, “the last of the group,” as the Arab proverb described her, was particularly difficult.

“Sama was my youngest and most spoiled child. She got angry whenever she talked about having another child.

Adly was her “pillar of support.” Her children were her world.

Hanan said: “We endured this entire war, and faced the harshest conditions of displacement and bombing.” “My children suffered from hunger and lack of food and basic necessities.”

“We survived this war for more than a year, but they were killed in its last minutes. How could this happen?

A happy day has turned into a nightmare. The family had celebrated the end of the war the night before.

“Hasn’t the Israeli army had enough of our blood and the atrocities it committed for 15 months?” Hanan asked.

Then she thought about her future. After her husband and two of her children were taken from her, with tears streaming down her face, she asked: “What is left?”