Israel – Hamas war: Palestinian siblings see parents killed in IDF raid
Among the crowds of homeless people now packed into southern Gaza, there is a five-year-old boy called Mu’min who was hit by a grenade.
A fragment from the device passed through his left eye and is lodged in his brain – but the injury he sustained in the kitchen of his home forms just a part of this story.
The incident is just one of an innumerable number of catastrophes experienced by children in Gaza.
Follow latest updates: ‘Dreaded scenario unravelling at alarming speed’, UN warns
More than 10,000 have died according to the territory’s ministry of health. At least 17,000 children have been left unaccompanied or separated from their families according to data released by UNICEF.
Many thousands more have been injured or maimed – and every child is coming to terms with a terrible new reality.
On 15 December, Mu’min, who is disabled, and his siblings Ahmad and Buthaina, lost their parents after the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) stormed into their house in a suburb north of the centre of Khan Younis.
“They raided our house and they shot our mum and dad. Then they started shooting at us and wounded our brother,” said 11-year-old Ahmad, softly.
“We went to another room, hiding from the soldiers. Then, they started banging on the door and they blew it up,” added nine-year-old Buthaina.
The pair say they were subjected to a lengthy interrogation by IDF soldiers.
“They were interrogating us, asking us to show them the tunnels and to tell them where the resistance fighters were. Then, they gave us a white flag and told us to walk down Salahudin Street,” said Ahmad.
Father tried to avert disaster
Their father, Mohammed Khattab, who was also Mu’min’s primary caregiver, had tried to avert this disaster in the days preceding this disaster.
He asked his brother, Dr Omar Khattab Omar Al Zaqzouq, to alert the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in an increasingly desperate series of messages sent via WhatsApp.
On 7 December, the medic sent this on behalf of his brother: “He said that the tanks behind the house and excavator destroyed the near house.
“It’s very difficult to move without permission.”
On 8 December Dr Khattab pleaded with the same ICRC official: “I called my brother and he said there are tanks around the house – can’t move at all.
“It’s complicated.”
Mu’min has cerebral palsy and the family knew moving him would be difficult. Mr Khattab wanted to notify the Israelis in advance.
The ICRC’s representative tried to reassure them on the same day: “We’ve ensured that the houses would not be bombed or destroyed at night and in the future.”
But their confidence was misplaced.
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IDF storm family’s house
On 15 December, IDF soldiers stormed the Khattab family’s home. The children’s aunt, Duaa Khattab Omar Al Zaqzouq, said she was in the kitchen when they entered.
“They knocked down the front wall and entered the house, we were sitting down and having lunch at the time. Then my brother Mohammed was shot. He was at the front, waving a white flag.”
A grenade was thrown into the crowded kitchen, injuring Mr Khattab’s wife Hind and blinding Mumin in the left eye. Family members say a soldier then shot and killed Ms Khattab.
The survivors were interrogated “for three hours” before being allowed to leave.
The children and their aunt, Duaa Khattab Omar Al Zaqzouq
‘They were firing at us from all directions’
Duaa Khattab was one of a group of nine family members – including five children – who were evicted by the IDF and she said they were forced to walk through an active battlefield.
She said: “We went down Fifth Street and faced three tanks, they fired at us, they were firing at us from all directions. We were walking not knowing where we were going, it was getting dark… every time a child screamed, a bomb went off.”
Family members reached safety in the grounds of the Gaza European Hospital the following day and it was here, several weeks later that our team met Buthaina, sketching with her precious coloured pencils. Ahmad played a little football but we were told both were struggling to speak of their ordeal.
Aunt Duaa is busy now, learning to care for her disabled nephew. She said Mu’min cries all night and she doesn’t know how to make him happy.
She said: “They’ve lost their father and mother in one day, at the same time, in front of their eyes. This is a very difficult thing. No one can cope with this, no one can.”
Incident underscores dangers Gaza residents face, Red Cross says
Sky News provided a detailed description of events including dates, times and coordinates of the Khattab family’s home to officials at the IDF but they did not comment on this incident.
An ICRC statement said: “The tragic incident involving the Khattab family underscores the dangers residents across Gaza face.
“We note that the family’s decision to stay or leave their home was complicated by a young family member’s physical disability, a factor many other families must take into consideration as they make their own individual decisions of how best to protect family members.
“Amidst the widespread violence across Gaza, it remains the legal responsibility of the parties to the conflict to ensure civilians have safe routes to take when they are ordered to evacuate. If civilians are unwilling or unable to evacuate, they still remain protected in their homes under international humanitarian law, a fact that the parties must respect.
“When an ICRC staff member shared in a text message that houses would not be bombed or destroyed, that staff member was relaying information shared with the public by the Israeli Defence Forces specifying that the IDF would pause operations on 8/12/23 to enable the movement of humanitarian aid.
“In general, the ICRC, a humanitarian organization with roughly 125 personnel in Gaza, does not have the capacity to respond to individual families in need of safe passage amidst the fighting.”
World
Israel says first hostages handed to Red Cross as Palestinian prisoners also expected to be released
Israel says Hamas has handed over the first seven hostages to the Red Cross to be released as part of the Gaza ceasefire deal.
The remaining Israeli hostages are being released by Hamas after being held in Gaza for more than two years, in exchange for over 1,900 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
The Red Cross will drive the hostages to Israeli security forces, who will take them into Israel, where they will be reunited with family and flown by helicopter to hospitals.
Follow the latest updates here
Red Cross vehicles and buses in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip. Pic: AP
Tens of thousands of Israelis watched the transfers at public screenings across the country.
The families and friends of hostages broke out into cheers as Israeli TV channels announced the hostages were in the hands of the Red Cross.
Israel previously said that of the 251 initially taken captive in Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack, 20 of the hostages that remained in Gaza were thought to be alive, 26 were presumed dead, and the fate of two was unknown.
The 20 hostages are all men aged between 20 and 48, who have spent more than two years in captivity.
As part of the first phase of US President Donald Trump‘s ceasefire agreement, Hamas was given 72 hours to release all the Israeli hostages, alive and dead.
The agreed ceasefire started at midday local time (10am UK time) on Friday, with tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians moving back towards northern Gaza, which was mostly destroyed by Israel.
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Who are the hostages to be freed?
Hamas has released a list of the 20 living hostages it will free. Tap on their pictures to read more about them:
Once all the hostages are released, Israel is expected to free 250 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences and 1,700 Gazans detained after the 7 October attacks.
A second phase of the plan, which all sides have yet to agree on, could see Israeli troops further withdrawing from Gaza.
Trump says ‘war is over’
Mr Trump boarded Air Force One in Washington on Sunday to fly to Israel.
“The war is over,” he said. Asked about prospects for the region, he added: “I think it’s going to normalise.”
The US president will receive a hero’s welcome when he addresses Israel’s parliament on Monday. He will be awarded Israel’s highest civilian honour later this year, Israel’s President Isaac Herzog said.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on October 7 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage.
Israel invaded Gaza in retaliation, with airstrikes and ground assaults devastating much of the enclave, killing more than 67,000, according to its Hamas-run health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants but says around half of those killed were women and children.
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A teddy sits on a bed in a bright hospital room. Beside it is a small fridge stocked with bottled water and Coca-Cola.
While the bear might make you think a child is about to arrive, this room will soon be welcoming one of the 20 Israeli hostages believed to be alive in Gaza.
With phase one of Donald Trump’s peace plan now under way, an entire nation is holding its breath for the return of the hostages, not least the medical teams preparing to receive them.
Gaza latest: Israel prepares for hostages’ release
Sky News was given special access to one of the teams in the Rabin Medical Center in Petah Tikva, a city north-east of Tel Aviv.
It was sobering and emotional, but also inspiring, talking to its doctors and nurses as they showed us around what one calls the “homecoming unit”.
A welcome sign and Israeli flag greet the returning hostages
Director of Nursing Dr Michal Steinman took us into the light airy rooms where hostages will be allowed to recover at their own speed in private, choosing when and for how long they emerge, slowly reengaging with a world they’ve not known for two years.
She explained that each of the hostages – who are all men – will be given their own private room, where a gift basket filled with thoughtful items such as a teddy, a blanket, slippers and a phone charger awaits them.
The teddy is there to help bring comfort to the freed captives.
“Our research says each one of us has a child inside,” Dr Steinman told me. “We need something to pet and feel soft, and reassure them after the lack of senses for such a long time.”
Phones, she said, will be provided by the army.
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The bear is one of many small touches added to bring the hostages comfort in the coming days
The families will also bring items from home to make the area feel more familiar to their loved ones as they slowly adjust to freedom.
The men will also have access to other areas, including a private living space where they can spend time with loved ones or greet any visiting dignitaries. Their families will also be provided with rooms to stay in, as well as an area for the children of the hostages when they visit.
Medical equipment is kept in dedicated treatment rooms as part of an effort to make the rooms feel more like accommodation than a hospital.
One of the areas where family members can wait for their loved ones who have been in captivity to arrive
While the unit is pristine and ready for the new arrivals, it has previously been used to house other hostages released by Hamas.
Staff shared anecdotes revealing what may lie ahead. Dr Steinman told us of one released hostage who had had trouble not with sleeping, but with waking up.
“When I opened my eyes,” they had told her, “I was thinking that I’m still in a dream because there’s no way that I opened my eyes and I’m not in the tunnel. I thought, ‘it’s a dream inside a dream’.”
The hostages, she said, “can’t believe for the first moments they’re not in other place.”
A living space for the men and their families to relax in
Dr Steinman found another freed captive “stuck” and standing still after opening the refrigerator.
“I told him, ‘It’s hard for you to choose?’,” she explained. “And he said, ‘I’m just amazed at the colours. All I’ve seen for 100 days is black, white and brown’.”
The professor reinventing ‘hostage medicine’
For the head of the centre, Professor Noa Eliakim-Raz, and her team, the return of the hostages will be the culmination of two years of painstaking work.
They have effectively reinvented what they call ‘hostage medicine’, learning from the treatment of groups of hostages received during this war.
Professor Noa Eliakim-Raz tells me she has been ready for this moment for a long time
She is a serious and dedicated clinician. With professional precision, she told me of the challenges ahead, including the life-threatening risks of mistreating malnourished hostages held for so long underground.
Then she gave us a glimpse into the human side of their work.
“All the team, we’ve prepared for so long, I mean really, we’ve been in this for two years and all the time, we’re preparing and ready,” she said. “This ward that you saw is ready every day.”
How does she feel as the hostages’ arrival draws near?
“I feel very grateful, and I think that’s the strongest emotion, to be part of this,” she said.
Clearly moved, Professor Noa had to pause and collect her emotions, her eyes welling up when asked what she’d be thankful for most.
“I think being part of a small step,” she began, before pausing again. “A small step of making them feel hugged again and trusting the system.”
It will, she said, be a big relief when it’s over.
Professor Noa is writing a first-of-its-kind multi-disciplinary protocol for treating long-term hostages, literally rewriting the book on how to return them to normality.
Her department did not exist before October 7. In the two years since its inception, it has pioneered a form of treatment involving many different disciplines to maximise the chances of recovery.
The Rabin Medical Center’s staff believe the lessons they’ve learned will benefit doctors around the world in future.
But they hope never to have to use them on Israelis again.
Drones have been a common sight in Gaza for a long time, but they have always been military.
The whine of a drone is enough to trigger fear in many within the enclave.
But now, drones are delivering something different – long, lingering footage of the devastation that has been wreaked on Gaza. And the images are quite staggering.
Gaza latest: Chants of ‘thank you Trump’ in Hostages Square
Whole city blocks reduced to rubble. Streets destroyed. Towns where the landscape has been wholly redesigned.
Whole city blocks reduced to rubble
Decapitated tower blocks and whole areas turned into black and white photographs, where there is no colour but only a palette of greys – from the dark hues of scorched walls to the lightest grey of the dust that floats through the air.
And everywhere, the indistinct dull grey of rubble – the debris of things that are no longer there.
Gaza is full of people returning to their homes
The joy that met the ceasefire has now changed into degrees of anxiety and shock.
Gaza is full of people who are returning to their homes and hoping for good news. For a lucky few, fortune is kind, but for most, the news is bad.
Umm Firas has been displaced from her home in Khan Younis for the past five months. She returned today to the district she knew so well. And what she found was nothing.
Umm Firas returned to find nothing
“This morning we returned to our land, to see our homes, the neighbourhoods where we once lived,” she says.
“But we found no trace of any houses, no streets, no neighbourhoods, no trees. Even the crops, even the trees – all of them had been bulldozed. The entire area has been destroyed.
“There used to be more than 1,750 houses in the block where we lived, but now not a single one remains standing. Every neighbourhood is destroyed, every home is destroyed, every school is destroyed, every tree is destroyed. The area is unliveable.
“There’s no infrastructure, no place where we can even set up a tent to sit in. Our area, in downtown Khan Younis used to be densely populated. Our homes were built right next to each other. Now there is literally nowhere to go.
“Where can we go? We can’t even find an empty spot to pitch our tent over the ruins of our own homes. So we are going to have to stay homeless and displaced.”
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It is a story that comes up again and again. One man says that he cannot even reach his house because it is still too near the Israeli military officers stationed in the area.
Another, an older man whose bright pink glasses obscure weary eyes, says there is “nothing left” of his home “so we are leaving it to God”.
“I’m glad we survived and are in good health,” he says, “and now we can return there even if it means we need to eat sand!”
A man says there is ‘nothing left’
A bulldozer moves rubble
The bulldozers have already started work across the strip, trying to clear roads and allow access. Debris is being piled into huge piles, but this is a tiny sticking plaster on a huge wound.
The more you see of Gaza, the more impossible the task seems of rebuilding this place. The devastation is so utterly overwhelming.
Bodies are being found in the rubble while towns are full of buildings that have been so badly damaged they will have to be pulled down.
Humanitarian aid is needed urgently, but, for the moment, the entry points remain closed. Charities are pleading for access.
It is, of course, better for people to live without war than with it. Peace in Gaza gifts the ability to sleep a little better and worry a little less. But when people do wake up, what they see is an apocalyptic landscape of catastrophic destruction.
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