Know their names
Palestinian families killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza
Zein was the youngest member of the al-Najjar family, a common family name in Gaza meaning "Carpenter" in Arabic.
They lived in Deir el-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip.
On October 10, 2023, 18 members of the family, including five children and three women, were killed and 23 others injured in an Israeli air strike on their home.
Zein was just two months old.
According to Airwars, a UK-based conflict monitoring organisation, there have been at least three al-Najjar families that have lost 10 or more members.
Among the hundreds of families killed since Israel began its genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, at least 393 people were al-Najjars, as shown in the visualisation below.
I was shocked. I rushed home and saw a scene of utter destruction. I could not believe my eyes. Everybody was under the rubble. The house was completely pulverised. The bodies were reduced to shreds.
Over the past year, Israel has killed at least 41,909 people - including 16,756 children - in attacks on Gaza, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, with thousands more missing or buried under the rubble.
On September 15, the ministry published a comprehensive report detailing the names, ages, gender and ID numbers of 34,344 of these victims. Thousands more bodies were still being identified.
Every day in Gaza, on average:
- 115 people are killed - that's one out of every 55 people living in Gaza
- 46 are children
- 31 are women
- 38 men
- 266 people are injured - that's one out of every 23 people in Gaza
- 27 people are missing under the rubble
- 5,480 people are forced from their homes
The Gaza Strip is a graveyard for thousands of children, the United Nations has said.
Many of these children have lived through the trauma of multiple wars. From birth, they have lived under an Israeli blockade that has affected all aspects of their lives.
More than 17,000 children have lost one or both parents.
In the early hours of the morning on October 26, 2023, at least 38 members of the al-Astal family across three generations, including seven women and 20 children, were killed by an Israeli air strike on their home in the as-Satr al-Gharbi area of Khan Younis.
Some of their names are shown below:
Israel’s attacks on Gaza have wiped out 902 entire families, erasing them from the civil registry.
This means every single one of their members was killed over the past year.
Additionally, at least 1,364 Palestinian families were left with only one surviving member, while 3,472 Palestinian families were reduced to just two surviving members.
The largest number of people were from these families:
- Al-Najjar - 393
- Al-Masry - 226
- Al-Astal - 225
- Ashour - 166
- Shaheen - 164
- Hamdan - 151
- Al-Madhoon - 146
- Ahmed - 145
- Obeid - 144
- Hijazi - 141
Some of these families are shown below:
Among the victims are:
- 710 babies below the age of one
- 1,793 toddlers (1-3 years old)
- 1,205 preschoolers (4-5 years old)
- 4,205 primary school children (6-12 years old)
- 3,442 high school children (13-17 years old)
- 5,374 young adults (18-25 years old)
- 13,837 adults (26-55 years old)
- 3,077 Naksa survivors (56-74 years old)
- 701 Nakba survivors (75+ years old)
The oldest recorded victim so far was 101-year-old Ahmed Mohamed Ibrahim al-Tahrawi.
Below is a searchable list of the names and ages of more than 34,344 Palestinians that Israel has killed in Gaza from October 7 - August 31.
Shown as a video, the names run for 59 minutes: