Jerusalem, like Ahmed al-Qudra left to see what, if something was left of his family’s house in the town of Al-Qarara, believed that the long-awaited fire in Gaza had begun.
Then, around 9 am on Sunday, January 19, he began walking north through the city of Khan Younis with his seven children, including his eldest son, Adil, 16, and his youngest daughter, Sama, 6 years.
It would prove to be a fatal mistake. Without him and his family knowing it, the high fire, which will begin that morning at 8.30 am, had been delayed. Hamas had not provided the names of the first hostages planning to release that afternoon, so Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the air attacks to continue.
When the Al-Qudras approached El Bareer Street, one of the main roads of Khan Younis, an Israeli plane attacked a vehicle of the Palestinian police that passed. The Israeli army said in a statement at that time that it was reaching “terrorist objectives.”
But the explosion also sent the shattered shrapnel to the Al-Qudra family.
The video verified by NBC News shows Ahmed’s body on the street next to Adil, while several of the younger children shout by their father, shortly after the strike around 9.30 am
When the truce finally began at 11:15 am, Sama had been declared dead.
She was the last girl killed in Gaza before the Alto El Fuego, said a spokesman for Nasser Hospital A NBC News.
“This is his destiny,” said Sama’s mother, Hanan, 31, to NBC News last week, about the death of her husband, son and daughter.

After Sama’s small body was taken to the Nasser hospital, he was briefly presented in a metal tray, barefoot and with a pink sweater, before being wrapped in a vertiginous Islamic burial cover. Adil lay by his side.
That morning the children “jumped for joy” before the perspective of returning home, said Hanan, and added that he was on the market buying food when he heard the explosion and hastened to the hospital, praying that his family was not involved.
Instead, she would find that her husband, her son and daughter were among the last of more than 47,000 people killed in Gaza since the beginning of the War of October 7, 2023, according to health officials in the enclave.
Before the war, Hanan said that the nineteenth family had fought financially but found happiness in his home in Al-Qarara. Sama sometimes dreamed aloud on his wedding day, asking what dress he would wear, said Hanan.
But the family was displaced and homeless after the fighting began, he said, adding that the children were often hungry.
“His father and I cried at night when we put our heads on the pillow because they wanted to eat,” he said.
The war had a especially hard cost in Sama, said Hanan. She shared a video with NBC News showing three of her daughters walking along a dusty road that wore yellow plastic cans to collect water. Sama struggles to keep up with the older girls, cleaning sweat and dust of their eyes while approaching the camera.
“She had been asking for more than two months to eat a banana,” said Hanan. “I took it and bought a small banana. She wanted Pizza, so I bought a small piece for 2 Shekels (55 cents). I told him to eat it on the street so that his brothers did not know. “
“I was afraid that they could die wanting something they couldn’t have,” he added.
The Israeli strike that killed Sama occurred on the last full day of President Joe Biden in office, and such attacks were a source of continuous tension between his administration and the Netanyahu government.
The police in Gaza falls under the Ministry of Interior controlled by Hamas, and enforces the laws established by the militant group after it took control of the Strip in 2007. Israel considers that the members of the police force are terrorists of Hamas and Legitimate military objectives, despite the fact that some officers also carry out more mundane duties such as the application of traffic and crime prevention.

Then, Israel’s defense forces repeatedly attacked police officers at the beginning of their 15 -month military campaign, which he launched after Hamas killed 1,200 people and received around 250 as hostages in the terrorist attack on October 7 , according to the many Israelis.
The Biden Administration warned that Israel’s orientation to Palestinian police officers was adding to chaos in Gaza and leaving vulnerable humanitarian aid convoy to looting.
“With the departure of the police escorts, it has been practically impossible for the UN or any other person … move the assistance safely in Gaza due to criminal gangs,” said David Satterfield, sent from Biden for humanitarian aid, Earlier this month.
On the morning of January 19, uniformed police officers returned to the streets of Khan Younis and, like the Al-Qudra family, they also seem to have mistakenly believed that the high fire had entered into force.
Hours after their family members were killed, a Hanan exhausted her against the wall of a relative’s house. Several of his surviving children sat next to him, a blanket spread down his laps.
He moved through photos of his children, stopping a photo of a sama taken during the pandemic. He was holding a medical mask about the nose here, although it was too big for his little face.
“She was like a rose,” said Hanan. “May God have mercy on her.”