'They're dead': A Gaza father cries for the loss of wife, 4-day-old twins, killed in Israeli airstrike

Mohammed Mahdi Abu Al-Qumsan, 26, was in tears at the Al Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. The young father was barely able to stand from the shock of the news he had received. 

Al-Qumsan was on his way to pick up birth certificates for his newborn twins when he received the call: Aysal, Ayser and their mother, Jumana, were killed in an Israeli strike. 

The twins were just four days old. 

"The phone rings, [they said], 'The apartment you're in has been hit,'" Al-Qumsan told CBC freelance videographer Mohamed El Saife. "They told me, 'Your wife and children are at Al-Aqsa Hospital.'" 

He held up his children's birth certificates, trying to absorb the life-altering turn the day had taken. 

"Here is their date of birth, Aug. 10," he said. "They're dead." 

Children in Gaza have been heavily impacted by the ongoing Israel-Hamas war — one per cent of the child population, or around 14,000, have been killed over the past 10 months, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.

And of the nearly 40,000 total people killed in the strip, 115 were newborns, the ministry states.

The details of the Al-Qumsan family's account as published "are not currently known" to the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), the army told CBC in a statement.

It also said it is fighting Hamas in Gaza, and that it "targets only military objectives and employs various measures to minimize harm to civilians."

'We can't even tell who's who'

The same day, a strike in Khan Younis left five-month-old Reem Abu Haya an orphan. 

"Her mom, her siblings — her entire family is gone," her paternal grandmother Rashida Abu Haya told CBC's El Saife. "Twenty people are gone."

Rashida worried about how the child would manage after such a devastating loss. 

"They were just having dinner until suddenly, a rocket struck them," she said. 

"They're all mutilated into pieces. We can't even tell who's who."

The current Israel-Hamas war began on Oct. 7, when a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel killed around 1,200 and took about 250 hostage, by Israeli counts. Israel's subsequent invasion of Gaza since then has killed nearly 40,000, by Palestinian tallies. 

In June, for the first time, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres added Israel's military and security forces, Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad to the list of parties committing "grave violations" against children. 

The annual list covers the deaths of children in conflict, denial of access to aid and targeting of schools and hospitals, and a report is presented to the UN Security Council. 

"I'm appalled by the dramatic increase and unprecedented scale and intensity of grave violations against children in the Gaza Strip, Israel and the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, despite my repeated calls for parties to implement measures to end grave violations," wrote Guterres. 

Children pay the 'heaviest price'

Children, defined as those under 18, make up nearly half of Gaza's population, and they pay the "heaviest price" in the war, Dalia Al-Awqati, Save the Children Canada's head of humanitarian affairs, told CBC in an interview.

"Children are more likely to be killed by the explosive weaponry that is used in the bombardment," she said. "Their bodies are a lot more vulnerable to the violence that they experience." 

The effects of the war are not simply physical but psychological, too, she said.

"It has taken an immense mental toll on children."

And even prior to the war, children's mental health in the territory was already at "a breaking point," she said. 

Israel has blockaded Gaza since 2007 — when Hamas took over the region — citing the need to protect itself. But many children have not known life in the strip without such a blockade, which has largely cut Gazans off from the rest of the world. 

Multiple escalations in violence before the war have impacted them, as well: In 2022, Save the Children found that four out of five kids in Gaza reported living with depression, grief and fear.

One last time together

Al-Qumsan's screams filled the air, as he begged to see his wife one last time — her body along with those of their babies lay in white body bags in the hospital courtyard. Men held him up and whispered to him, trying to calm him, though most of these attempts proved futile.

Eventually, Al-Qumsan took his place among community members. 

Through sobs, he began his prayer for the deceased. He wept for the deaths of his wife and children, killed after just four days together, in a war that continues to tear families apart.