After months of unbearable anguish, not knowing whether her four young children – all under the age of ten – were dead or alive, Alaa Al-Qatrawi finally received the news no parent should ever have to hear.

“My babies were killed. They were pulled out of the rubble of our home after four months of silence. I never even got to say goodbye,” Al-Qatrawi tells TRT World.

Her last conversation with her 10-year-old son, Yamen, was on December 13 2023. He described the horror unfolding around them: Israeli soldiers had stormed their home in Khan Younis, stolen their money and jewellery, punctured water tanks to drain them, and destroyed gas canisters—eliminating any means of survival.

Yamen, and his younger siblings Carmel, Orkeda and Kanan were left to starve, trapped in fear.

“My children asked me to come and save them, they were terrified. We were only twenty minutes apart, but any attempt to reach them meant facing direct killing under Israeli fire."

Days later, the calls stopped. For months, Alaa held onto hope. Then came the confirmation of her worst nightmare – their crushed bodies were pulled from the ruins of their home. 

The Red Cross, often quick to act when Israeli hostages are in need, dismissed Al-Qatrawi’s pleas, citing "security concerns." In the end, no one came for Yamen or his siblings.

No one came for the thousands of other Palestinian children left to die in silence.

No one came

One of the most devastating cases is that of five-year-old Hind Rajab. Trapped inside a car after her entire family was slaughtered, she made desperate pleas over the phone to the Red Cross for rescue. The world heard her terror. The help she begged for never came. Instead, an Israeli tank fired upon her. The silence that followed was deafening.

Hind is just one of thousands.

According to Gaza government statistics, nearly 30,000 children and women have been killed in 470 days of military aggression.

The world has been shown images of lifeless Palestinian infants pulled from the rubble of their homes, the cries of parents mourning their children drowned out by the thunder of continued airstrikes. Yet, Israel's leadership presents itself as a protector of children while its bombs obliterate their futures.

While the voices of Palestinian families like Alaa Al-Qatrawi’s grieve their murdered children in silence, Israel’s narrative dominates mainstream discourse. 

Weaponising tragedy

But Israel holds the microphone.

It has amplified unverified claims blaming Hamas for the tragic deaths of Ariel and Kfir Bibas, two young children killed while being held captive in Gaza, leveraging their loss as a focal point in its ongoing political and military agenda.

Hamas has stated that the Bibas children and their mother Shiri, were housed in good conditions before Israeli airstrikes killed them along with their captors. Reports indicate that the location where they were held was bombed by Israeli fighter jets just weeks after October 7 2023, leading to their deaths. 

Dr Chen Kugel, head of Israel’s National Institute of Forensic Medicine, previously promoted claims of "decapitated children on October 7" without offering any proof. Now, he asserts that the Bibas children were "strangled with bare hands." No evidence has been provided to support this claim.

In fact, reports indicate that parts of Shiri’s body were severely torn, just like Palestinian bodies recovered from the rubble. But, Israel tries to portray the scene in a way that serves its propaganda, ignoring the facts on the ground. 

Daniel Levy, a former Israeli-British negotiator and activist, underscored the hypocrisy of Israel’s selective mourning at the United Nations last week: "It would be appropriate to observe a minute's silence for each of the Bibas children, as well as a minute's silence for each of the Palestinian children killed in Israel's destruction of Gaza. This silence will extend for more than 300 hours!"

What humanity is Israel talking about?

The world has seen what Israel does to children—whether by direct bombardment, starvation, or extrajudicial execution.

How can Israel claim moral superiority while it continues to massacre Palestinian infants? How can it expect the world to weep for its dead while denying even the dignity of burial to the thousands of Palestinian children left beneath the ruins?

Israel, which killed Hind Rajab, Al-Qatrawi’s children, and nearly 20,000 more, has lost any right to claim itself as a protector of innocence. 

The case of the Bibas children is tragic, but it should not overshadow the mass extermination of Palestinian babies—victims who will never be spoken for in Israeli press conferences, who will never be mourned by the international community with the same fervour.

It is time for the world to acknowledge the real horror: the deliberate, systematic killing of Palestinian children at the hands of the Israeli war machine.