Tragedy Strikes Gaza Family Minutes Before Ceasefire Begins
The al-Qidra family’s hopes of returning home were shattered when an airstrike killed three of their members just before the Gaza ceasefire took effect.
In the minutes leading up to the ceasefire on January 20, the al-Qidra family, weary from 15 months of displacement and violence, were hopeful. The family had been forced to live in a tent after being displaced multiple times by Israeli attacks, with many of their relatives among the more than 46,900 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces. But they had survived the worst—until the final moments of conflict.
Ahmed al-Qidra, determined to return to whatever remained of their home, packed his seven children into a donkey cart and set off for eastern Khan Younis, believing it was now safe to travel. They were unaware that the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas had been delayed by several hours. Despite the ceasefire’s anticipated start at 8:30 am, Israeli aircraft continued to fly over Gaza, and the family’s hopes of returning home were tragically dashed by an airstrike.
The explosion was so loud that Ahmed’s wife, Hanan, who had stayed behind to gather their belongings, instantly feared for the worst. "The blast felt like it hit my heart," Hanan recalled, sensing that something had happened to her children, whom she had only just said goodbye to. “My children, my children!” she screamed as she learned of the attack.
The missile struck the cart, killing her eldest son, 16-year-old Adly, and her youngest, six-year-old Sama. Hanan’s daughter Yasmin, 12, witnessed the horror, describing how a four-wheel drive had been ahead of the cart, likely the target of the missile, which hit the family by mistake. Yasmin managed to pull her eight-year-old sister Aseel from the wreckage before a second missile struck. Eleven-year-old Mohammed also survived, but Ahmed, Hanan’s partner, succumbed to his injuries in the hospital.
In a hospital room in Khan Younis, Hanan sat next to her daughter Iman, who had been injured in the attack. Still in shock, she asked, "Where was the ceasefire?" The family had not heard the details of the delay, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement that the ceasefire would be postponed due to Hamas’ failure to provide the names of Israeli captives for release. By the time the ceasefire took effect, 19 Palestinians had lost their lives, including three members of the al-Qidra family.
Hanan’s grief was overwhelming, especially the loss of Sama, her "youngest and most spoiled" child. "Sama was my youngest, and the most spoiled. She’d get angry whenever I talked about having another child,” Hanan shared, with tears in her eyes. Adly, her “pillar of support,” was also gone, leaving her with a broken heart and an uncertain future.
After surviving a year of bombings, displacement, and deprivation, Hanan asked, "How can this happen?" A day that was meant to mark the end of the war turned into a nightmare for her family.
“We survived more than a year of this war, only for them to be killed in its last minutes. How can this happen?” she said, in disbelief.
As she wept, Hanan wondered what was left for her. With her husband and two children gone, she asked, "What’s left?"