Outside a displacement tent in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, Sanan Abu Al-Atta struggles to roll a ball to another child. Burdened by injuries to his eye and pelvis, his movements are laboured. Watching him with sorrow, his grandmother sighs, her gaze lingering on his injured eye—a haunting reminder of the Israeli aggression.

“Look at this flower, how they destroyed him. God is our only solace,” she tells a reporter from SND News Agency.

Seven months ago, an Israeli airstrike targeted Sanan’s family in Gaza, killing his parents, two brothers, and maternal grandmother. Sanan was pulled from beneath the rubble, gravely injured. A fractured pelvis left him with a limp, and his right eye was irreparably damaged. Despite multiple surgeries in Gaza’s overwhelmed hospitals, his mobility remains impaired, and his vision in one eye is permanently lost.

Sanan often reflects on the loved ones he lost, comforting himself with the belief that they are in paradise, surrounded by its blessings.

His grandmother, consumed with grief and anger, condemns the brutality of the Israeli occupation. “This occupation is a cancer that knows no humanity. It bombs relentlessly, day and night, targeting innocent civilians without justification. They killed prophets, so it’s no surprise that they kill children.”

According to recent data from Gaza’s Government Media Office, citing the Ministry of Health, the Israeli war has wiped out 1,600 Palestinian families from the civil registry, killing fathers, mothers, and all family members. An additional 3,471 families have been decimated, leaving only one surviving member. The death toll from these families exceeds 9,000, while 35,074 children now live without one or both parents.