DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza — Mohammed Abu Al-Qumsan had just collected birth certificates for his newborn twins when he received devastating news: his wife, their babies, and his mother-in-law had been killed in an Israeli airstrike on the apartment where they had taken refuge.
Clutching the laminated documents, which should have marked a joyful moment in the embattled Palestinian enclave, Abu Al-Qumsan was inconsolable at the morgue where their bodies had been taken.
“My wife is gone, my two babies, and my mother-in-law. I was told it was a tank shell that hit the apartment they were sheltering in, in a house where we had been displaced,” said the 31-year-old, recalling the heart-wrenching phone call from neighbors.
Abu Al-Qumsan and others carried his boy and girl, Asser and Ayssel, wrapped in white burial shrouds—tragically familiar scenes in Gaza, where Israeli air and land strikes have forced hundreds of thousands to constantly flee in search of safety.
At Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, a man prayed over the small bodies as they were placed in the back of a vehicle, while onlookers crowded the hospital’s balconies, overwhelmed by the ongoing violence.
Months after the Gaza war ignited, Israel’s military strikes, tank shells, and severe shortages of medicine, food, and clean water have pushed the densely populated area to the brink of collapse.
“Today will be remembered as the day the occupation army targeted newborn children, barely four days old, along with their mother and grandmother,” said Dr. Khalil al-Daqran, a hospital doctor.
Israel maintains that it takes extensive measures to avoid civilian casualties and accuses Hamas of using civilians as human shields—an accusation the militant group denies.
The conflict erupted when Hamas launched a cross-border raid into Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and taking over 250 hostages, according to Israeli reports.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has since resulted in nearly 40,000 deaths and over 92,000 injuries, according to Gaza health officials, while much of the territory has been reduced to rubble.