Israeli Strikes in Gaza Leave Families Torn Apart, Thousands of Orphans

Israeli Strikes in Gaza Leave Families Torn Apart, Thousands of Orphans

Ashiq Butt | August 14, 2024 | 06:38 PM IST | Breaking News, Israel Palsteine Conflict, World | Follow on Google News

Israeli Strikes in Gaza Leave Families Torn Apart, Thousands of Orphans

Israeli Strikes in Gaza Leave Families Torn Apart, Thousands of Orphans

Key Highlights:

• Israeli airstrikes in Gaza have killed thousands, including entire families, leaving children orphaned.
• Reem Abu Hayyah, just three months old, is the sole survivor of her family after a recent airstrike.
• Over 17,000 children in Gaza are now unaccompanied, as estimated by the United Nations.

Three-month-old Reem Abu Hayyah is the sole survivor of an Israeli airstrike in Gaza that killed her entire family late Monday. A few miles to the north, another strike claimed the lives of Mohamed Abuel-Qomasan’s wife and newborn twins, leaving him devastated.

More than 10 months into the war between Israel and Hamas, relentless airstrikes have wiped out entire families, leaving thousands of children orphaned and without any surviving relatives.

Many of these children are so young that they will have no memory of the family members they have lost.

The airstrike near Khan Younis that killed Reem’s family also wounded several other children. The only one left to care for Reem is her aunt, who struggles to feed her since she is accustomed to her mother’s milk.

Abuel-Qomasan’s tragedy is equally heartbreaking. While he was registering the birth of his twins, a shell hit the house where his family was sheltering, killing his wife, newborns, and their grandmother.

The Israeli military has not commented on the specific strikes, while Gaza’s Health Ministry reports that nearly 40,000 Palestinians have died since the start of the war.

Israel’s ongoing offensive has left thousands of orphans, with local doctors using the acronym “WCNSF” to identify children with no surviving family.

The United Nations estimated in February that around 17,000 children in Gaza are now unaccompanied, a number that has likely increased since.

Many families in Gaza have ignored evacuation orders, believing there is no safe place to go.

Ashiq Butt

Ashiq Butt – is VoM News's senior staffer worked since year 2015 and he deals with correspondency and social media handles. Hailing from Doda's Marmat, Ashiq has strong grip over the collection of the data and it's compiling feature.