Israeli missiles hurled him out of his family’s embrace and threw him alone onto the rooftop of a neighboring house, while his home and loved ones were turned into rubble and scattered body parts below.
A video of Ali spread rapidly across social media: a tiny hand waving through thick black smoke, and terrified eyes trying to comprehend how his sisters, father, and relatives vanished within seconds.
Ali screamed with a choked voice, waving desperately in hopes that someone would see him amid the inferno of dust and destruction. At times, he fell silent, and at others, he cried out in terror, in a scene that captured the brutality inflicted on civilians in Gaza.
His grieving mother, the only survivor alongside him, recalled the horrifying moment: “I was running down the stairs through smoke and darkness when I saw Ali waving his hand from the neighbors’ rooftop and screaming. I called out to him, ‘Don’t be afraid, mama is coming to you.’”
Ali did not know, as he waved for help, that the sisters who had been watching cartoons with him just minutes earlier had already been torn apart by the blast.
“We were happy together,” his mother said. “The children were playing and watching cartoons, and I was in the kitchen making coffee and pasta for them. Suddenly, the home collapsed over our heads.”
The night of the massacre
At approximately 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 24, 2025, an Israeli missile struck the family’s home on Al-Yarmouk Street in Gaza City, directly hitting the living room where the family had gathered.
“The force of the explosion made me lose my hearing and fall to the ground. I thought a gas cylinder had exploded. Everything around me was burning,” said Nahla.
“I ran searching for my husband, my daughters, my brother, my sister, and their children. I kept calling for them, but there was no response. Smoke filled the place. Everything was completely black.”
Describing the aftermath, she said: “My daughters were torn in half. The home was bombarded by three missiles from the air.”
In anguish, she asked, “There were only women and children inside. Ten children were killed, my daughters, my brother’s children, and my sister’s children. What was their crime? Why were their bodies blown into the sky?”
Sole survivor
Nahla lost her husband, her five daughters, Zeina (14), Lin (13), Razan (11), Souad (6), and two-year-old Jouri, along with her parents and many relatives.
“There is no one left for me,” she said with a shattered heart. “Only Ali and I survived.”
Nahla suffered second-degree burns to her back, hands, and legs, a ruptured eardrum, and damage to both corneas. Ali suffered a broken leg, shrapnel wounds in his abdomen, and injuries to his head.
She ended her testimony saying, “We are a family of innocent civilians. They bombed us without warning. The Israeli occupation committed a massacre against us and destroyed our lives.”
