Israel kills Gaza's 'youngest influencer', 11, in airstrike
An 11-year-old child who became known as Gaza's 'youngest influencer' was killed in an Israeli airstrike this weekend.
Yaqeen Hammad, who had 106,000 followers on her Instagram, was killed Friday night alongside dozens of other children in Deir al-Balah, a Palestinian city in the central Gaza Strip.
Local press reported that emergency crews called the scene of the strike 'indescribably painful'.
Yaqeen became popular for her volunteering efforts and her infectious positivity.
She and her older brother, Mohamed Hammad, often worked together to deliver food, toys, and clothing to families in the destroyed enclave.
The young girl often shared what she was up to online and gave advice on how to handle daily life while under bombardment.
Yaqeen and Mohamed, a humanitarian worker, regularly visited camps and makeshift shelters to spread cheer and comfort other children.
In a video shared three weeks ago, Yaqeen was seen handing out ice cream to younger children.
Her death has shocked the world. British writer and politician Kamel Hawwash expressed his heartbreak towards the loss of Yaqeen.
He said: 'Israel killed this beautiful child Yaqeen Hammad in its terrorist operation today in Deir al-Balah, among others. She did some great humanitarian work supporting others.'
Yaqueen's final post online was shared on May 16. In it, she, Mohamed and other workers handed out fruit to adults and children.
Yaqeen's followers have shared their heartbreak over her passing.
One wrote: 'I can't imagine Gaza without you. May your soul rest in peace, sweetheart. Heaven is more beautiful.' More Trending
'My beautiful, big smile, kind little soul. Surely, we count you among the martyrs and friends. May your soul rest in peace,' another added.
Since Israel launched their 'military campaign' in Gaza in response to Hamas' cross-border attack on October 7, 2023, which killed over 1,000, at least 53,977 people have been killed in Gaza.
In the last ten weeks, an additional 3,822 have been killed in Palestine.
Israel has intensified its air campaign in Gaza in recent days. Yesterday, at least 52 people were killed, including 31 in a school turned shelter that was struck as people slept, sparking a major fire which killed many inside.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
MORE: Gazan doctor receives the charred remains of nine of her 10 children after Israeli bombing
MORE: A mum in Gaza told me her children are waiting to die
MORE: Everything we know so far about Washington DC shooting suspect Elias Rodriguez
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The National
37 minutes ago
- The National
Neal Ascherson: Gazans paying the price for Israel's military failure
The lesson of the past three years in Gaza is that Israel's war there has been a gross military failure. In reality, Israel's army is incompetent and disorganised. The weakness is in tactics, training and morale, and it's the people of Gaza who are paying for it. The IDF, staggering under the weight of every kind of sub-nuclear weaponry and intelligence on land, air or sea, has been unable to crush a far smaller urban guerrilla force apparently using only small arms, booby-traps and a few rocket launchers. READ MORE: Palestinian jazz singer to share rich heritage through music at Scottish festival This is partly because the Israelis use the old American tactics of the Second World War: don't enter a built-up area which might contain enemies, but first bomb it to rubble. The drawback is that this creates a perfect landscape for snipers hiding in the ruins, which is what has happened in Gaza. As the war in Iraq has shown, this is the kind of fighting that advancing soldiers most dread. House-to-house combat in undestroyed streets is less dangerous, but it's a grim routine which requires prolonged training. And the available evidence suggests that the basic training of Israeli recruits is astonishingly poor and erratic. Soldiers who commit atrocities are usually frightened soldiers. They are also burned-out soldiers, no longer reliable, who should at once be taken out of action before they do more damage. Some of the IDF's crimes against civilians have an element of revenge: it's wrong to underestimate the trauma left by Hamas's insane orgy of murder in October 2023. More often, it seems, the killings have been the reaction of ill-trained and scared men, possibly after suffering a comrade casualty, whose officers and unit commanders have totally failed to lead and reassure them. To explain is not, of course, to excuse. But old-fashioned 'discipline', the traditional remedy for fear, is hard to impose on young men from a proudly self-assertive society of many sects and origins. None of those qualifications apply to the men and women carrying out the indiscriminate bombardment of Gaza from the air, the daily slaughter of innocent families, at no risk to themselves. They are parties to a deliberate crime against humanity. READ MORE: Jeremy Corbyn to table Chilcot-style Gaza inquiry bill in the Commons But the IDF on the ground in Gaza is illustrating a great change in the attitude of 'Western' countries toward warfare. This is the intense and growing reluctance of soldiers and commanders to take casualties and risk lives. These days, a pimply youth blowing a whistle and ordering a trenchful over the top into the machine guns would only get one answer: Gonnae no dae that! But is this proof of a slow spread of compassion and humanity? Or does it only mean that mass killing is now conducted by remote-control drones or by button-pushers in another continent? Perhaps Gaza can show us.
Spectator
an hour ago
- Spectator
Starmer's plan to ‘smash the gangs' isn't serious
Keir Starmer has repeatedly promised to smash the gangs to secure our borders. But the reality is rather different. Yesterday, the Prime Minister tweeted a short clip once again attempting to reassure British voters that the government is 'going to the source to smash the people smuggling gangs'. The video is an odd, cheap thing. Set to possibly the most generic soundtrack available and voiced over by an utterly bored-sounding young man, it shows images of small boats full of migrants, foreign police, and open water. Eye-catchingly, it promises to reveal just 'how we're controlling our borders'. Unfortunately, almost every single claim it makes is misleading or laughable. The narrator tells us that the government is 'working with our international allies to smash people smuggling gangs for good' and that 'hundreds of boats and engines have been seized'. 'Since July we have returned nearly 30,000 people with no right to be here,' he continues.
The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
BBC defends Gaza coverage after White House criticism
The BBC has defended its coverage of the war in Gaza, after the White House criticised its reporting of an apparent incident in the territory, which reportedly left a number of people dead. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed the corporation, after updating an article's headline with new information, had to 'correct and take down' its story about fatalities and injuries following a reported incident near an aid distribution centre in Rafah. The BBC said it has not removed its story and explained that its headlines about the incident were 'updated throughout the day with the latest fatality figures as they came in from various sources', which is 'totally normal practice'. In a press briefing on Tuesday, Ms Leavitt responded to a question about the incident and said: 'The administration is aware of those reports and we are currently looking into the veracity of them because, unfortunately, unlike some in the media, we don't take the word of Hamas with total truth. 'We like to look into it when they speak, unlike the BBC, who had multiple headlines, they wrote, 'Israeli tank kills 26', 'Israeli tank kills 21', 'Israeli gunfire kills 31', ' Red Cross says, 21 people were killed in an aid incident'. 'And then, oh, wait, they had to correct and take down their entire story, saying 'We reviewed the footage and couldn't find any evidence of anything'.' While she was speaking Ms Leavitt held up a document that appeared to show a social media post from X, formerly Twitter, with the different headlines. The person who posted the headlines also posted a screenshot from a BBC live blog and wrote: 'The admission that it was all a lie.' The headline from the blog post read: 'Claim graphic video is linked to aid distribution site in Gaza is incorrect.' A BBC spokesperson said this came from the a BBC Verify online report, and not the corporation's story about the killings in Rafah, saying that a viral video posted on social media was not linked to the aid distribution centre it claimed to show. Ms Leavitt added: 'We're going to look into reports before we confirm them from this podium or before we take action, and I suggest that journalists who actually care about truth do the same to reduce the amount of misinformation that's going around the globe on this front.' A BBC spokesperson said: 'The claim the BBC took down a story after reviewing footage is completely wrong. We did not remove any story and we stand by our journalism. 'Our news stories and headlines about Sunday's aid distribution centre incident were updated throughout the day with the latest fatality figures as they came in from various sources. 'These were always clearly attributed, from the first figure of 15 from medics, through the 31 killed from the Hamas-run health ministry to the final Red Cross statement of 'at least 21' at their field hospital. 'This is totally normal practice on any fast-moving news story. 'Completely separately, a BBC Verify online report on Monday reported a viral video posted on social media was not linked to the aid distribution centre it claimed to show. 'This video did not run on BBC news channels and had not informed our reporting. Conflating these two stories is simply misleading. 'It is vital to bring people the truth about what is happening in Gaza. International journalists are not currently allowed into Gaza and we would welcome the support of the White House in our call for immediate access.' The corporation has faced a backlash over its coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict and it emerged earlier in the year that a documentary it aired about Gaza featured the son of a senior Hamas figure. Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone was removed from BBC iPlayer after it emerged that the child narrator, Abdullah, is the son of Ayman Alyazouri, who has worked as Hamas's deputy minister of agriculture.
