11-Year-Old Gaza Girl Sharing Survival Tips Murdered by Israeli Strike
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – An 11-year-old Palestinian girl who had gained a large online following by sharing survival tips from inside besieged Gaza was killed in an Israeli airstrike as Israel’s bombardment of the enclave continues to claim civilian lives.
Yaqeen Hammad, Gaza’s youngest influencer, had been posting videos to over 100,000 followers on how to endure life under relentless Israeli attacks.
She demonstrated ways to cook without gas and shared glimpses of joy amid destruction, including smiling, dancing and distributing toys to children.
Her final videos showed her helping Gaza’s orphans and bringing them clothes in a modest attempt to ease their suffering.
“Today was a day of joy for Gaza’s orphans — we were giving them new clothes to bring a little happiness,” she wrote in one of her last posts.
On Friday, Yaqeen was among several children brutally murdered when Israeli warplanes viciously struck her neighborhood in the Al-Baraka area of Deir al-Balah, central Gaza.
Her body was found torn apart beneath the rubble of her family’s destroyed home.
She regularly posted updates through her @yaqeen_hmad account, often in collaboration with Ouena Collective, a Gaza-based non-profit providing humanitarian aid.
Many of her videos featured her distributing aid with her brother, Mohamed Hammad.
Her martyrdom sparked outrage and grief online.
“What did a little girl do to deserve being killed?” one comment read.
Another user wrote, “I’m sorry we couldn’t protect you.”
According to Gaza’s health authorities, Yaqeen is one of more than 15,000 children murdered in the besieged territory since Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023.
The strike that killed her was part of a wave of Israeli attacks that left at least 52 Palestinians dead.
Among them were 31 people killed in an overnight strike on a school that had been converted into a shelter, where families were asleep when their belongings caught fire.
The escalation comes amid an 11-week blockade by Israel on essential supplies — including food, fuel, water, and medicine — which has plunged Gaza into a deep humanitarian crisis.
Experts have repeatedly warned the blockade is pushing the population to the edge of famine.
The Israeli military claimed without proof on Thursday that 107 trucks carrying flour, food and medical supplies entered Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing.
However, aid deliveries remain sporadic, and the United Nations says between 500 and 600 trucks per day are needed to meet basic humanitarian needs.
Israel claims Hamas has diverted aid, a charge the resistance movement denies.
Hamas says its fighters have died protecting aid convoys from pro-Daesh (ISIS or ISIL) looters that were given mission by the Zionist regime to kill aid-receiving people.
A new distribution system, backed by the United States and operated by private contractors, is set to launch from four centers in southern Gaza.
But UN officials have refused to participate, arguing the system serves Israeli political and military goals rather than humanitarian principles.
Since the start of its brutal war on Gaza civilians, Israel has launched a devastating ground and air campaign that has flattened much of Gaza, killed over 53,000 people — mostly civilians — and displaced nearly the entire population, according to Gaza's health ministry.
