Before Oct. 7, 2023, Ayat Qadoum and her family of six lived in the Shuja’iyya neighborhood of Gaza City. Her husband worked, and all four of her children attended school. The two eldest—16-year-old Hala and 15-year-old Ibrahim—often competed academically as they studied to one day become doctors.

Less than a week after the Israeli military began bombing Gaza City, Qadoum, her husband, and their children left Shuja’iyya, travelling south to the Nuseirat refugee camp in the center of the Gaza Strip, a supposed “safe zone,” according to Israel. Despite assurances, on Dec. 6, 2023, Israel bombed the apartment tower where they stayed with extended family.

“The children were playing with their father and cousins to make them forget a little about the horror and suffering they were experiencing,” Qadoum recalled to Prism. “Suddenly, everything changed.”