Alone in Gaza: A man who lost his family in one strike
Mahmoud Khalla, 40, visits a cemetery every morning to stand at the graves of family members he lost during Israel's war on Gaza. Al Jazeera described on October 16, 2026, how he has been left without family or a home and moves around Gaza in search of shelter.
On December 21, 2023, his wife, three children, parents, two brothers and their families, his sister and her children, and other relatives had gathered in the family's five-storey home in Jabalia in northern Gaza. That evening, Khalla left the house to search for provisions. About 15 minutes later, he heard a huge explosion.
According to that account, an Israeli strike had hit the house, destroying the building and killing all 39 people inside. Khalla, who had left shortly before the strike, was the only surviving member of his family from that attack.
Nine days earlier, his uncles' house opposite the family home had been targeted, killing 18 people. After the December strike destroyed his home, Khalla spent months displaced and alone, sleeping in streets or in cars as he moved in search of somewhere to sleep.
Other deaths in Gaza have continued to be reported in recent weeks. Israeli strikes killed at least five Palestinians in two separate attacks, health officials said, as reported by Reuters on October 10, 2026. Health officials also said an Israeli strike killed at least two Palestinians in the southern Gaza Strip, as reported by Reuters on October 12.
On September 10, 2026, an Israeli airstrike killed a man, his wife and their two daughters, aged 8 and 12, in a house in northern Gaza, according to medics cited by Reuters. Medics and the church also said Christian mother Maisa Abu Dawoud and her daughter Mary were among those killed in an Israeli strike in Gaza, as reported by Reuters in early October.
