Know their names

Mahmoud wanted to be a journalist, just like his father.

Determined to share the stories of his homeland with the world, the 16-year-old, known as “young Wael” together with his sister Khuloud, started recording videos during Israel’s most recent bombings of Gaza.

“In Gaza, there is no place safe … this is the [fiercest] and most violent war we have lived [through] in Gaza. Help us to stay alive,” the young Dahdouh duo pleaded in unison.

Help us to stay alive

by Mahmoud and Khuloud Dahdouh

On the night of October 25, Mahmoud was killed, along with his mother, seven-year-old sister Sham, one-and-a-half-year-old nephew Adam and 21 others, in an Israeli air raid on Nuseirat camp where the family was taking shelter after being told by the Israeli army to move south for their safety.

Over just 19 days, from October 7 to 25, at least 7,028 people - including 2,913 children - have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

On October 26, the ministry published a comprehensive report detailing the names, ages, gender and ID numbers of 6,747 of these victims.

“The world must realise that behind every number is a story of a person whose name and identity are known,” the ministry's spokesperson said.

The list did not include the names of 281 people, who, at the time, were still being identified by the ministry.

In recent days, the Israeli army has expanded its air and ground attacks on Gaza – including houses and hospitals – which has been under relentless air raids since the surprise attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on October 7 that killed at least 1,405 people in Israel, according to Israeli officials.

Since the publication of this list, the death toll in Gaza has surpassed 8,500, with thousands more missing or buried under the rubble.

Health ministry figures have been consistently recognised as reliable by humanitarian groups, international organisations including the United Nations, news outlets, and branches of the United States government, spanning multiple previous rounds of fighting in Gaza.

Every hour in Gaza:

• 15 people are killed - 6 are children
• 35 people are injured
• 42 bombs are dropped*
• 12 buildings are destroyed

*Based on the first six days of the war, according to the Israeli army

Residents in Gaza have flocked to hospitals and United Nations schools for safety, hoping that Israel will abide by international law and not attack those coordinates.

However, places of shelter have also not been free from Israeli attacks.

Women, children and the elderly make up 73 percent of those killed by Israeli bombardments in Gaza.

Among the victims are:

• 133 babies below the age of one
• 482 toddlers (1-3 years old)
• 344 preschoolers (4-5 years old)
• 1,042 primary school children (6-12 years old)
• 664 high school children (13-17 years old)
• 966 young adults (18-25 years old)
• 2,506 adults (26-55 years old)
• 521 Naksa survivors (56-74 years old)
• 89 Nakba survivors (75+ years old)

The oldest victim so far was 93-year-old Mahdiya Abdullah Abdul Wahab Halawa.

More than 70 percent of Gaza’s population, comprising some 1.7 million people are refugees. Most of them live in or near Gaza’s eight refugee camps. These camps were established in the aftermath of the 1948 Nakba (“catastrophe” in Arabic) when an estimated 750,000 Palestinians were forced out of their homes by Zionist militias.

During the 1967 war, Israeli forces occupied all of historic Palestine and expelled a further 300,000 Palestinians from their homes. This came to be known as the “Naksa”, meaning setback or defeat.

The plight of Palestinian refugees is the longest unsolved refugee problem in the world.

The number of children killed in Gaza in just three weeks has surpassed the annual number of children killed across the world’s conflict zones since 2019.

The Gaza Strip is now a graveyard for thousands of children, the United Nations has said. Until October 31, more than 3,500 children have been killed in this conflict - an average of 140 children killed each day.

A further 6,360 children have been injured, many with life-changing consequences.

Many of these children have lived through the trauma of multiple wars. From birth, they have lived under an Israeli blockade which has affected all aspects of their lives.

Thousands of lives have been cut short.

A grief-stricken Palestinian father told Al Jazeera how an Israeli air strike on Gaza’s oldest Christian church killed his three children who were seeking shelter there.

“We sought refuge here [in the Church of Saint Porphyrius] thinking it was a safe haven. Our last safe haven, in a church. The house of God.”

Suhail Ramez Al-Souri (14), Julie Ramez Al-Souri (12), Majd Ramez Al-Souri (10)

by killed by an Israeli air strike on the Church of Saint Porphyrius

“They bombed my angels and killed them without warning. They killed our children, the children of cousins and relatives.”

For more than three weeks now, Israel has imposed a total blockade on the already besieged Gaza Strip, including a ban on food, water and fuel. Only a trickle of humanitarian aid, described by United Nations chief Antonio Guterres as "a drop of aid in an ocean of need" has been admitted to the besieged territory via the Rafah crossing with Egypt.

“People are going to starve unless they get humanitarian assistance now. We need many, many, many more trucks and a continual flow of aid,” Cindy McCain, executive director of the World Food Programme, said.

According to the health ministry, between October 7 and 31, at least 6,120 reported fatalities were from 926 families with:

• 192 families losing 10 or more members
• 136 families losing 6-9 members
• 444 families losing 2-5 members

Below is a searchable list of the names and ages of more than 6,700 Palestinians that Israel has killed in Gaza from October 7-25.