‘My children, my children’: The Gaza family killed minutes before ceasefire

The al-Qidra household wanted to spell backmost home. They didn’t cognize that the Israel-Hamas ceasefire had been delayed.

Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Palestine – The ceasefire successful Gaza was expected to commencement astatine 8.30am (06:30 GMT). The al-Qidra household had endured 15 months of Israeli attacks. They had been displaced much than erstwhile and were surviving successful a tent. Their relatives had been among the much than 46,900 Palestinians killed by Israel.

But the al-Qidras had survived. And they wanted to spell home.

Ahmed al-Qidra packed his 7 children onto a donkey cart and headed to eastbound Khan Younis. It was yet harmless to question – the bombing should person stopped.

But the household did not cognize that the ceasefire betwixt Israel and Hamas had been delayed. They did not cognize that, adjacent successful those further fewer hours, Israeli craft were inactive flying implicit the skies of Gaza, acceptable to driblet their bombs.

The detonation was loud. Ahmed’s woman Hanan heard it. She had stayed down astatine a relative’s location successful the centre of the city, organising their belongings, readying connected joining her hubby and children a fewer hours later.

“The blast felt similar it deed my heart,” Hanan said. She instinctively knew that thing had happened to her children, whom she had lone conscionable said goodbye to.

“My children, my children!” she screamed.

The cart had been hit. Hanan’s eldest son, 16-year-old Adly, was dead. So was her youngest, six-year-old Sama, the babe of the family.

Yasmin, 12, explained that a four-wheel thrust was successful beforehand of the cart carrying radical celebrating the ceasefire. Perhaps that was the crushed the rocket hit.

“I saw Sama and Adly lying connected the ground, and my begetter bleeding and unconscious connected the cart,” Yasmin said. She pulled her eight-year-old sister Aseel retired earlier a 2nd rocket deed the spot wherever they had been. Eleven-year-old Mohammed besides survived.

But Ahmed, Hanan’s spouse successful life, was pronounced dormant successful the hospital.

The conveyance travelling up of the al-Qidras’ donkey cart whitethorn person been targeted successful the Israeli aerial onslaught [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]

‘My children were my world’

Sitting connected the borderline of her injured girl Iman’s infirmary furniture successful Khan Younis’s Nasser Hospital, Hanan was inactive shell-shocked.

“Where was the ceasefire?” she asked. In their excitement to yet instrumentality to immoderate was near of their home, the household had missed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declaring that the Palestinian radical Hamas had not sent implicit the names of the 3 Israeli captives who would beryllium released connected Sunday arsenic portion of the ceasefire deal.

They had not seen Hamas explicate that determination were method reasons for the delay, and that the names would beryllium provided, as they yet were.

They would not cognize that successful the three-hour hold earlier the ceasefire yet began, 3 members of their household would beryllium killed. They were among the 19 Palestinians killed by Israel successful those past fewer hours, according to Gaza’s Civil Defence.

Hanan al-Qidra has to instrumentality attraction of her remaining children connected her ain aft her hubby Ahmed was killed successful the Israeli onslaught successful Khan Younis connected January 19 [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]

Hanan broke down successful tears. She would present person to look beingness without her hubby and without 2 of her children. The nonaccomplishment of Sama, “the past of the bunch” arsenic she described her with the Arabic saying, was peculiarly hard.

“Sama was my youngest and the astir spoiled. She’d get aggravated whenever I talked astir having different child.”

Adly had been her “pillar of support”. Her children were her world.

“We endured this full war, facing the harshest conditions of displacement and bombardment,” Hanan said. “My children dealt with hunger, a deficiency of nutrient and basal necessities.”

“We survived much than a twelvemonth of this war, lone for them to beryllium killed successful its past minutes. How tin this happen?”

A time of joyousness had been turned into a nightmare. The household had celebrated the extremity of the warfare the nighttime before.

“Hasn’t the Israeli service had capable of our humor and the atrocities they committed for 15 months?” Hanan asked.

Then, she thought of her future. With her hubby and 2 of her children ripped distant from her, and with tears coming down her face, she asked: “What’s left?”