Gaza Herald – The Israeli missile that struck the Dalloul family home east of Gaza City on the morning of October 9, 2023, was not just another attack that passed unnoticed. It was an act of annihilation that erased an entire family from the civil registry.
Eight lives were lost in a single moment: the grandfather, his children, and his grandchildren. Only the two young twins, “Carmen and Karim,” survived after being thrown out of the house by the force of the blast, given a second chance at life, despite their serious injuries.
The Final Hair Style
Among hundreds of images documenting the victims, one photo captured the depth of the tragedy: the body of six-year-old Zina Dalloul, covered in dust, cradled in the hands of a relative as she was pulled from beneath the rubble.
Her grandmother, Hiam Farajallah, recalls the final moments before the strike. She had been speaking with Zina daily via video call. “Zina was sitting with her mother and siblings at home, playing and happily telling me how she managed to style her hair by herself,” she says.
Zina did not know that her first hairstyle would be her last, that the red hair tie she wore would become the only identifying mark on her small body under the bombarded home.
The grandmother says Zina and her mother seemed to sense the nearness of death. Moments before the explosion, the child whispered to her sister in fear: “I can hear the surveillance drone… it’s very close.. right above my head.”
At that time, the mother was sitting in prayer clothes, reciting the Qur’an, as if both were preparing for departure. Then, suddenly, everything fell into silence, followed by a deafening explosion that ended it all.
A Red Hair Tie in the Rubble
After the strike, Abdul Dalloul, a relative, rushed to the scene about one kilometer away after receiving a call that the family home had been bombed. He found an entire residential block wiped out by Israeli airstrikes.
He searched through the remains of his relatives until a red hair tie caught his attention. But the dust and destruction had turned Zina’s small body into ash-grey fragments.
Rescue teams managed to recover Zina, who had dreamed of becoming a doctor, from beneath the rubble. Abdul carried her body, believing she might still be alive, shouting to journalists: “We are not defeated .. Israel’s targets are children and mothers!”
Zina and her family were taken to Al-Shifa Hospital, where her grandmother later identified them as shrouded bodies, their names the only remaining trace of a massacre.
On a near-daily basis, Israeli forces continue to violate the ceasefire agreement. Since it came into effect on October 10 last year, at least 870 Palestinians have been killed and 2,543 others injured.
