Last Tuesday afternoon, five-year-old Ghadeer Muqdad held her sisters’ hands as they set out to buy necessities with their small pocket money. Unaware that these moments would be her last, Ghadeer’s innocent play was abruptly shattered by the deafening roar of an explosion, a grim reminder of the relentless Israeli war on Gaza.  

At 1:00 PM, a violent blast struck near Abdul Aziz al-Rantisi Hospital in Gaza City’s al-Nasr neighborhood, targeting children playing in the street. Seven Palestinians, mostly children, were killed. Among them was Ghadeer, who lay silently bleeding amidst the chaos, dust, and screams.  

Her father, Youssef Muqdad, was racing to save his injured nephew when the explosion occurred. “I ran to the scene and found my nephew covered in blood. I carried him to the hospital, not realizing Ghadeer was missing,” he recalled, his voice heavy with grief. “When I returned to the tent, I searched for her everywhere, calling her name, but she was gone.”  

After an hour of frantic searching, Youssef found Ghadeer in a nearby tent, lying on a mattress, her small body bleeding silently. She wasn’t crying or screaming—just lying there, as if asleep, her life slipping away.  

Her mother, Zainab Muqdad, recounted the heartbreak: “I was helping the injured, unaware my daughter was bleeding alone. When we found her, it was too late.” Ghadeer’s grandmother, Hiam Muqdad, tried to console the family, though she herself had lost her son, Islam, just months earlier. “Today, I bid farewell to my little granddaughter, who was playing happily before death took her,” she said.  

At Ghadeer’s funeral, her father cradled her small body, a painful echo of the days when he held her as a baby. She was light in his arms, but her dreams—of a safe home and new toys—were heavy with loss. Her laughter now a memory, her toys left behind as silent witnesses to yet another war crime.  

“What did Ghadeer do to deserve this?” her family asks, their question echoing unanswered. She was just a child, her only crime being born in Gaza, where even the smallest dreams are crushed under the weight of Israel’s brutal war.  

The attack that took Ghadeer’s life was part of a larger Israeli military escalation on March 18, which claimed over 400 Palestinian lives and injured 600 others. As Gaza mourns its youngest victims, the world is reminded of the unbearable cost of this war—a cost paid by children like Ghadeer, whose only wish was to play in peace.