Wafaa Akila was eight. Sunday was her first day of school.
An Israeli strike hit a car in western Gaza City on Sunday morning. Two of the people inside it were a man and his eight-year-old daughter.
Al Jazeera named them as Youssef Akila and Wafaa Akila, and reported that Sunday was Wafaa's first day of school. Reuters, carried by Arab News, attributed the identification to Mohamed Abu Selmia, the head of Al-Shifa Hospital, and reported that six other people were wounded. The Israeli military said it had been targeting a Hamas militant, and that it was still assessing the results of the strike.
The reporting does not agree on one detail. IMEMC, working from Gaza's Ministry of Health, gives her name as Wafa Akila and her age as six, and places the strike near the Hamid intersection west of Gaza City. Al Jazeera and Reuters both give her age as eight. We have carried eight, from the stronger sourcing, and we are telling you the record is split rather than leaving you to find it.
That is Sunday. Here is the frame it sits inside.
On June 23 this year the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry published a report titled “The essence of childhood has been destroyed.” UN News reported that it found more than 20,000 Palestinian children killed in Gaza since October 2023. The Conversation, reading the same report, put the number injured at more than 44,000.
Read the first of those numbers slowly. Twenty thousand children, across a little under three years.
There has been a ceasefire since October 2025. In June the UNICEF spokesperson James Elder said that at least 265 Palestinian children had been killed in Gaza since it began, which he described as a child killed on average every day for more than eight months. That figure was current as of June 19.
On the same Sunday the Akilas were killed, Al Jazeera reported that Palestinians in Gaza City held a mass burial for around 100 people, including dozens of children, whose remains had been recovered from the rubble in Zaytoun.
Wafaa Akila did not get to her first day of school.
By the numbers
- more than 20,000 — Palestinian children killed in Gaza since October 2023, in the UN Commission of Inquiry report released June 23, 2026[1]
- more than 44,000 — Palestinian children injured over the same period, from the same UN report[2]
- at least 265 — Palestinian children killed in Gaza since the October 2025 ceasefire began, as of June 19, 2026, per UNICEF spokesperson James Elder[3]
- around 100 — people, including dozens of children, buried in Gaza City on September 6 after their remains were recovered from rubble in Zaytoun[4]
- six — others wounded in the strike on the car, per the head of Al-Shifa Hospital[5]
The reporting
This story is built on reporting by Al Jazeera. Read the original →
Sources
- Al Jazeera, Eight-year-old Gaza girl killed by Israel on first day of school
- Arab News, Israeli strike kills a man and his daughter in Gaza, medics say
- IMEMC, Israeli drone strike kills six-year-old on her first day of school
- UN News, The essence of childhood has been destroyed
- The Conversation, A UN report details the overwhelming scale of children killed in Gaza
- Al Jazeera, Israel kills a child a day on average in Gaza despite ceasefire, UN says
- Al Jazeera, Palestinians in Gaza bury remains of 100 people recovered from rubble
Image credits
- Hero: source (AFP) — AFP
- Rubble: source (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0) — Hla.bashbash
- Boy: source (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0) — Hla.bashbash