Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Palestine – this Gaza ceasefire It was scheduled to start at 8.30am (06:30GMT). al-Qidra’s family has endured Israeli attacks for 15 months. More than once they were displaced and lived in tents. Their relatives are among the more than 46,900 Palestinians killed by Israel.

But al-Qidras survived. They want to go home.

Ahmed al-Qidra loaded his seven children into a donkey cart and headed east of Khan Younis. It was finally safe to travel – the bombing should stop.

But the family was unaware that the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas had been postponed. They didn’t know that even during those extra hours, Israeli planes were flying over Gaza, preparing to drop bombs.

The explosion was loud. Ahmed’s wife Hanan heard. She stayed at a relative’s home downtown, gathering their belongings and planning to reunite with her husband and children in a few hours.

“The explosion felt like it hit me in the heart,” Hanan said. She knew instinctively that something had happened to the children she had just said goodbye to.

“My children, my children!” she screamed.

The cart was hit. Hanan’s eldest son Adly, 16, died. Her youngest, six-year-old Sama, is also the baby of the family.

Yasmeen, 12, explained that a four-wheel drive pulled up carrying people celebrating the ceasefire. Maybe that’s why the missile hit.

“I saw Sama and Adli lying on the ground and my father bleeding and unconscious in the car,” Yasmin said. She pulled her eight-year-old sister Axel out before a second missile hit their original location. Eleven-year-old Mohammed also survived.

But Hanan’s life partner Ahmed was pronounced dead in hospital.

“My children are my world”

Hanan sat at the bedside of her injured daughter Iman at Khan Younis Nasser Hospital, still in shock.

“Where’s the ceasefire?” she asked. The family, excited to finally return to their remaining home, missed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement that the Palestinian group Hamas had not forwarded the names of three Israeli captives who would be imprisoned on Sunday. released as part of Israel’s security plan. ceasefire agreement.

They did not see Hamas explaining that there were technical reasons for the delay and that names would be provided, as they ended up being.

Little did they know that in the three hours before the ceasefire finally began, three members of their family would be killed. they are 19 Palestinians killed by Israel in the final hours, according to Gaza Civil Defense.

Hanan burst into tears. She will now have to face life without her husband and two children. Losing Sama (who she described in Arabic as “the last of the bunch”) was particularly painful.

“Sama is my youngest and the most spoiled. She gets angry whenever I talk about having another child.”

Adley has always been her “support”. Her children were her world.

“We lived through the entire war and faced the worst conditions of displacement and bombing,” Hanan said. “My children faced hunger, lack of food and basic necessities.”

“We survived this war for over a year and yet they were killed in the last minutes. How could this happen?”

A day of joy turned into a nightmare. The night before, the family had celebrated the end of the war.

“Have the Israeli military not had enough of our blood and the atrocities they have committed for 15 months?” Hanan asked.

Then she thought about her future. When her husband and two children were taken from her, she tearfully asked, “What’s left?”