Yara Mohammad Mo’een Al-Qulaq

Their life

Yara Mohammad Mo’een al-Qulaq was a 10-year-old Palestinian girl from Gaza City. She lived with her family in their home on al-Wehda Street, one of the city’s busiest residential neighborhoods. Yara was a young child full of innocence and affection, growing up alongside her siblings and extended family in Gaza, where daily life was overshadowed by war and siege. On May 16, 2021, she was killed with her sisters and other relatives when Israeli airstrikes leveled her home, wiping out large parts of the al-Qulaq family.

Yara was born and raised in Gaza, where she experienced both the joy of family life and the constant anxiety of living under blockade and recurring military offensives. She was one of the younger daughters of the al-Qulaq family and shared a close bond with her sisters Hala (13), Rola (6), and Lana (4). Like many children her age, she spent her days in school and at play, dreaming of a peaceful future despite the turmoil around her. On the night of May 16, 2021, dozens of Israeli warplanes carried out a wave of intense bombardments on al-Wehda Street, dropping more than 100 missiles on residential buildings without prior warning. The strikes destroyed multiple four-story homes, including those of her family and neighbors, and buried Yara under the rubble along with her sisters, parents, cousins, and elderly relatives. In total, 17 members of her extended family were killed that night, among them children as young as one year old and elders in their nineties. Yara’s short life was ended in an instant, leaving

How they died

Yara was killed in her home when Israeli airstrikes struck and collapsed her family’s residential building on al-Wehda Street in Gaza City.

On May 16, 2021, Israeli warplanes launched dozens of missiles on Gaza City’s al-Wehda Street, targeting residential buildings. The al-Qulaq family home, where Yara lived with her parents and siblings, was struck directly. The building collapsed, killing Yara instantly along with her sisters Hala, Rola, and Lana, and many relatives. Rescue workers later pulled their bodies from the rubble. The strikes killed 43 civilians that night, most of them children and women, and devastated entire families, including the al-Qulaq and Abu al-Auf households. Yara’s death was part of what has since been documented as one of the deadliest single nights for civilians in the May 2021 assault on Gaza.

A plea from the family

A surviving cousin of the al-Qulaq family told journalists in tears after the burials: “We buried children in pieces. Entire families have vanished under the rubble. We only ask the world: why did they bomb our houses without warning? Why our children?” Extended relatives of Yara’s family said they had to identify small bodies, some burned and crushed: “We pulled them out with our own hands, one after another—Hala, Yara, Rola, Lana. They were all so young. How can anyone justify this?” A neighbor who joined in the rescue work said: “They targeted us while we were sleeping. The girls were hugging each other when we found them. Their family is destroyed. We beg the international community—don’t let this crime pass without justice.” Relatives of the al-Qulaq family publicly appealed for accountability: “We lost seventeen members of our family in one night. From a baby of one year to our grandfather of ninety. What law in the world allows this? We want the world to protect us and to hold the killers responsible.”

Why we remember them

This record exists so that Yara Mohammad Mo’een Al-Qulaq, and all who are named in this archive, are never reduced to a number.

References & sources