By Humaira Ahad
Before Gaza’s martyrs were turned into statistics by the West-backed genocidal regime in Tel Aviv, they had names, families and dreams for the future.
A 13-year-old boy sat in front of a camera, excitedly talking about reaching 100,000 subscribers on YouTube. A poet kept writing as Israeli bombardment intensified around him. A grandfather held the body of his three-year-old granddaughter after an Israeli airstrike killed her, calling her “the soul of my soul.”
Three years after the historic Al-Aqsa Flood operation on October 7, 2023, which was followed by the Israeli regime’s all-out genocidal war on the besieged Palestinian territory, those images and words remain part of the record of a genocide that has transformed life in Gaza.
Since the regime launched its genocidal aggression, entire neighbourhoods have been destroyed, families have been eliminated, and people from across Palestinian society have appeared in long and dark casualty lists.
At least 74,000 Palestinians have been killed, including at least 21,000 children, since October 7, 2023. That is about one in every 30 people in Gaza, or roughly 3 percent of its pre-war population. The actual toll is likely higher, with thousands still buried under rubble.
The dead include children, parents, doctors, academics, athletes, journalists, artists and students. Some were killed by the regime with their families inside their homes.
Others were buried beneath buildings hit by Israeli airstrikes and are still not accounted for. Some were killed while sheltering in places they had fled to for safety.
Their cold-blooded murders were documented in news, photographs, videos, messages and the accounts of relatives and survivors.
The ten Palestinians featured here are among those whose lives and deaths became known beyond Gaza during the genocide.
Refaat Al-Araeer: Gaza’s beloved poet
Refaat Al-Araeer was killed when a missile struck his sister’s home in Al-Shujaiya on December 7, 2023. He was Gaza’s most prominent writer and professor of world literature.
He had taught creative writing at the Islamic University of Gaza, his classes a refuge for students who wrote under the brutal Israeli siege.
Before his death, he posted a short poem titled If I Must Die, ending with the line: “Let it be a tale.” The poem became Gaza’s anthem of endurance, recited at protests across the world.
Just two days before his death, Al Araeer wrote a tribute to the Palestinian resistance.
"More horrific Israeli bombardments…We could die this dawn. I wish I were a freedom fighter so I die fighting back those invading Israeli genocidal maniacs invading my neighbourhood and my city."
In one of his last public interviews, the Palestinian poet vowed that, if necessary, he would die by the same pen through which he lived.
“I am an academic. Probably the toughest thing I have at home is an Expo marker. But if the Israelis invade and barge at us, charge at us, open door-to-door to massacre us, I am going to use that marker to throw it at Israeli soldiers even if that is the last thing that I would be able to do.”
Reem and Tareq: Essence of the Soul
Three-year-old Reem and five-year-old Tareq were among those killed when Israeli strikes levelled their home in Al-Nuseirat in November 2023.
Their grandfather, Khaled Nabhan, became a reluctant face of Gaza’s grief. In a viral video, he was seen kissing Reem’s lifeless body, holding her earring pinned to his chest.
“She was my ruh-el-ruh,” he said, the essence of my soul.
The haunting image joined a growing archive of unbearable civilian testimony, family photos turned into evidence.
Khaled Nabhan: 'The soul of my soul'
Nabhan became a familiar face of Gaza’s grief after an Israeli airstrike killed his grandchildren.
Reem and Tareq had been inseparable from their grandfather. In a video, Nabhan fixed Tareq’s hair and photographed the bodies of the two children as they lay beneath white shrouds, waiting to be buried.
“We were inseparable. I loved her more than my soul,” he said after Reem’s killing.
The man who had lost his grandchildren did not leave the streets of Gaza after their killing.
Nabhan began appearing among displaced Palestinians, helping distribute food and assisting people who had lost their homes. He spoke about his own family’s losses while trying to help others endure theirs.
He also spoke of further Israeli attacks on his relatives, including the bombing of his brother’s home.
Then, in December 2024, Israel killed him. An Israeli airstrike struck a home belonging to the Abu Hajar family in Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. Nabhan was among those killed.
Awni Eldous: Gaza’s young gamer
In August 2022, 13-year-old Awni Eldous posted a video thanking his viewers for helping his channel reach 1,000 subscribers. Beaming at the camera, he spoke excitedly about his ambition to reach 100,000 subscribers, then 500,000, 1 million and, eventually, 10 million.
“I am Awni Eldous, a Palestinian from Gaza. I am 12 years old,” he said.
“The goal of this channel is to reach 100,000 subscribers. And 500,000, then 1 million, and God willing to reach 10 million subscribers with your support and love.”
More than a year later, in late October 2023, an Israeli airstrike struck Awni’s home in northern Gaza, killing him and his entire family.
Awni’s fascination with computers was inspired by his father, a computer engineer. He would imitate his father by taking apart laptops and trying to put them back together.
Photos shared on the Facebook page of his school, Safad Primary School (A) for boys, show him standing before a blackboard with a motherboard in his hands, teaching other students about computer technology as part of the Little Teachers Initiative.
His relatives affectionately called him “Engineer Awni” because of his love for computers.
His aunt, Ala’a, said Awni looked up to YouTubers who had turned their hobbies into careers. “He wanted to be like them – to have followers and fans.”
Awni’s channel now has 1.72 million subscribers. He was killed with his family at a time when he was still building the future he had described in his videos.
Hind Rajab: A child who shook the world
The call lasted over three hours. Hind, trapped in her family’s car under Israeli fire, was talking to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) team.
Her family lay motionless beside her. “Please come take me,” she whispered to the PRCS dispatcher. “It’s getting dark and I am afraid of the dark.”
Hind’s voice, recorded and circulated worldwide, became one of the most haunting records of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The PRCS rescue team sent to reach her was itself targeted by Israel and killed before arrival.
Her story would later be immortalised in The Voice of Hind Rajab, a docudrama that won the Silver Lion award and received a record 23-minute standing ovation at its premiere.
In May 2024, pro-Palestine student protestors at Columbia University renamed Hamilton Hall to “Hind’s Hall”, carrying her name into the global protest movement against genocide.
A human rights body was also named after her – Hind Rajab Foundation – which documents Israeli war crimes in Gaza and exposes the war criminals behind those crimes.
Ibrahim Hamed Hussein al-Astal: Professor who prayed for Gaza
A day after Israel launched its war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, Professor Ibrahim Hamed Hussein al-Astal took to Facebook with a prayer for his city and its people.
“Oh God, Lord of the worlds, protect us from troubles, and protect Gaza and its people, and be our aid, O God, sustain it with Your help,” he wrote on October 8.
Fifteen days later, an Israeli airstrike hit his home in Gaza City, killing the 62-year-old professor, his wife Nadia Yassin Hussein al-Astal and their two daughters.
A total of 87 members of Al-Astal’s extended family were killed in the strikes.
For years, Al-Astal had been part of Gaza’s academic life. He served as dean of the Faculty of Education at the Islamic University of Gaza and taught and researched education, including curriculum and mathematics teaching methods.
He earned his PhD in 1996 and later taught at universities in the United Arab Emirates before returning to Gaza and joining the Islamic University. He became head of the Curriculum and Teaching Methods department and was appointed dean in 2019.
His work was centred on education and the students who would shape Gaza’s future.
Mohammed Barakat: Legend of Khan Younis
Mohammed Barakat was preparing for the pre-dawn meal on the first day of Ramadan when an Israeli airstrike hit his family home in Khan Younis.
The Israeli attack killed the Palestinian football star and several members of his family.
Barakat had represented Palestine’s national football team and played as a striker and captain for Khan Younis Youth Club, where he became one of Gaza’s best-known footballers. He began his career in 2015 and quickly became a familiar name among football fans in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Supporters called him “the legend of Khan Younis.”
Over the course of his career, the 39-year-old scored 114 goals, including for several clubs in the occupied West Bank and Jordan, among them Al-Wehdat, as well as Saudi Arabia’s Al-Shoala.
Barakat, regarded as Gaza’s first centurion of goals and one of the besieged territory’s top scorers, also represented the Palestinian national team, making three appearances, and played for Ahly Gaza in the local league.
His final goal came on August 18, 2023, in a 1–1 draw against Shujayea Club at Yarmouk Stadium in Gaza City, during the second week of the Palestinian Premier League.
Humans of Gaza: Muhammad Barakat, Palestine's iconic footballer killed by Israel #HumansOfGaza #GazaGenocide pic.twitter.com/AGBnYuSoZd
— Press TV 🔻 (@PressTV) March 15, 2024
Dr. Maisara Azmi Al Rayyes: He feared being buried alive
“In the last few days, I'm starting to feel more terrified than ever. I imagine myself underneath the rubble, and I have a great fear of staying alive under the rubble.”
Dr.Maisara Azmi Al Rayyes sent those words to a friend as Israeli warplanes hovered over Gaza. On November 7, 2023, his fear became reality.
An Israeli strike hit his family’s six-story home while they were sleeping, trapping the 28-year-old doctor beneath the rubble. For 60 hours, Rayyes remained buried under the building.
His brothers Muhammad and Moayad survived the first strike and tried to retrieve him. As they attempted to recover their brother, another Israeli airstrike hit. Both brothers were killed. All three remained under the rubble for days.
Rayyes had studied medicine at Al-Azhar University in Gaza before receiving a Chevening Scholarship. He went on to study Women and Children’s Health at King’s College London, graduating with an MSc in 2019.
His research was published in several journals, and he wanted to work on healthcare for women and children in low-income and war-affected regions.
Dima Alhaj: Mother, WHO worker and a family erased
Dima Alhaj was known to relatives and friends for her smile. She was 29, worked with the World Health Organization’s Trauma and Emergency Team at Gaza’s Limb Reconstruction Centre, and had a five-month-old baby.
On November 21, an Israeli airstrike hit her parents’ home. Dima was killed along with her husband and their five-month-old child.
Two of her brothers and more than 40 members of her extended family were also killed.
Her father, Dr Abdellatif Alhaj, a senior surgeon at the Islamic University of Gaza, described the deaths in a message to a friend.
“I’m in deep pain, I lost my son Majd, his wife, and two of his children. My lovely daughter Dima – a WHO staff member, her husband, and her 5-month-old child. My little son Omar, 17 years.”
Dima had spent her working life helping people injured in Gaza.
Humans of Gaza: Dima Alhaj, a young mother who got killed with her 5-month-old in an Israeli airstrike, wished her son to see better days.#HumansOfGaza #GazaGenocide pic.twitter.com/tKlXqKpt6m
— Press TV 🔻 (@PressTV) December 13, 2023
Shaban Al Dalou: From one Israeli strike to another
Shaban Al Dalou had survived an Israeli bombing just eight days before the regime killed him.
The 19-year-old software engineering student was injured when Israeli forces bombed a mosque in central Gaza on October 6. He suffered serious injuries to his head and lungs and was taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah for treatment.
He was still there on October 14 when Israeli forces struck the refugee tents in the hospital compound where displaced Palestinians had sought shelter. The strike set the tents on fire.
Flames spread rapidly through the makeshift camp, engulfing between 20 and 30 tents. Shaban, still recovering from his earlier injuries, was trapped inside.
Witnesses said he called out to paramedics and other people nearby for help, but the fire was too intense for anyone to reach him. He was burned alive.
His mother, Alaa, was beside him, caring for her injured son. She too was killed in the fire.
He was also known as the family’s Quran reciter. His mother used to say: “Shaban is dearest to me because he has memorized the Holy Quran.”
Shaban had been studying software engineering and had spoken in an English-language video about the conditions in Gaza. He was also trying to find a way to evacuate his family from the beseiged territory.
Their stories end in different places, beneath the rubble of a family home, inside a burning hospital compound, in a car surrounded by gunfire, or in the ruins left by an airstrike.
But together, they trace the reach of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, into homes, schools, hospitals and shelters, and into the lives of ordinary people.
Three years on, the names of those killed by Israel continue to grow, while each name still represents a life remembered by family and friends who mourn the person behind the numbers.
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