Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Palestine – The ceasefire in Gaza was scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m. (0630 GMT). The al-Qidra family endured 15 months of Israeli attacks. They had been displaced several times and were living in a tent. Their relatives were among the more than 46,900 Palestinians killed by Israel.
But the Al-Qidras had survived. And they wanted to go home.
Ahmed al-Qidra took his seven children on a donkey cart and headed east to Khan Younis. It was finally possible to travel safely – the bombing should have stopped.
But the family did not know that the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas had been delayed. Little did they know that, even during these few extra hours, Israeli planes were still flying overhead over Gaza, ready to drop their bombs.
The explosion was loud. Hanan, Ahmed’s wife, heard it. She had been staying with a relative in the center of the city, organizing their affairs, planning to join her husband and children a few hours later.
“The explosion seemed to hit my heart,” Hanan said. She knew instinctively that something had happened to her children, to whom she had just said goodbye.
“My children, my children!” she shouted.
The cart had been hit. Hanan’s eldest son, Adly, 16, was dead. Just like his youngest Sama, six years old, the baby of the family.
Yasmin, 12, said a 4×4 was in front of the cart carrying people celebrating the ceasefire. Maybe that’s why the missile hit.
“I saw Sama and Adly lying on the ground, and my father bleeding and unconscious on the cart,” Yasmin said. She got her eight-year-old sister Aseel out before a second missile hit where they were. Eleven-year-old Mohammed also survived.
But Ahmed, Hanan’s partner, was pronounced dead at the hospital.
“My children were my world”
Sitting on the edge of her injured daughter Iman’s hospital bed at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Hanan was still in shock.
“Where was the ceasefire? she asked. In their excitement at finally being able to return to what was left of their home, the family failed to notice that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had said that the Palestinian group Hamas had not released the names of the three Israeli captives. who would be released on Sunday as part of the operation. ceasefire agreement.
They had not seen Hamas explain that there were technical reasons for the delay and that the names would be provided, as they ultimately were.
Little did they know that in the three hours before the ceasefire began, three members of their family would be killed. They were among 19 Palestinians killed by Israel in recent hours, according to Gaza Civil Defense.
Hanan burst into tears. She would now have to face life without her husband and without two of her children. The loss of Sama, “the last of the group”, as she describes it with the Arabic saying, was particularly hard.
“Sama was my youngest and most spoiled. She got angry every time I talked about having another child.
Adly had been his “pillar of support”. His children were his world.
“We endured this entire war, facing the harshest conditions of displacement and bombardment,” Hanan said. “My children suffered from hunger, lack of food and basic necessities. »
“We survived this war for more than a year, but they were killed in the last minutes. How can this happen?
A day of joy had turned into a nightmare. The family had celebrated the end of the war the day before.
“Has the Israeli army not had enough of our blood and the atrocities it has committed for 15 months? » asked Hanan.
Then she thought about her future. As her husband and two of her children were taken from her, and with tears streaming down her face, she asked, “What is left?”