Lana Riyad Hasan Ishkantna

Their life

Lana Riyad Hasan Ishkantna was a 3-year-old Palestinian girl from Gaza City. She lived with her parents, Riyad and Abeer, and her three siblings, Dana, Yehya, and Zain. Lana was described by relatives as a bright and gentle child, deeply attached to her siblings, with her short life shaped by the hardships of growing up under siege in Gaza. Her family was known to be warm and close-knit, trying to provide their children with a sense of normalcy despite the instability around them.

Born in Gaza in 2018, Lana grew up in the al-Rimal neighborhood, a vibrant but heavily targeted area of Gaza City. She was the third of four children in the Ishkantna family. Her father, Riyad, worked to provide for the household, while her mother, Abeer, dedicated much of her time to raising the children. Lana shared a strong bond with her older siblings, Dana and Yehya, and helped look after her baby brother, Zain. Friends and extended family remembered Lana as cheerful, playful, and full of curiosity, despite the daily challenges of life in Gaza under blockade and repeated bombardments. Her short life was overshadowed by the trauma of conflict, but within her home she was surrounded by love, family traditions, and the warmth of a protective mother. Sadly, her life was cut short when an Israeli airstrike struck their neighborhood, killing her, her mother, and all of her siblings in a single night.

How they died

Lana was killed in an Israeli airstrike on May 16, 2021, when missiles struck residential buildings in al-Wehda Street, Gaza City.

In the early hours of May 16, 2021, Israeli warplanes carried out a series of heavy airstrikes on al-Wehda Street in Gaza City. The attacks flattened entire residential blocks without warning. Lana was at home with her mother and siblings when the bombs struck, burying them under the rubble. Rescue workers later recovered their bodies along with dozens of other victims, most of them women and children. According to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), the attack killed 37 people in that single night, including 11 children, many from the Ishkantna, al-Qulaq, and Abu al-Auf families. Lana, just three years old, died alongside her mother and siblings in what human rights organizations have described as a disproportionate and unlawful attack on civilians.

A plea from the family

“What was their crime? They were sleeping in our home. I buried them all with my own hands.” He begged that no other parent should be left to bury all their children and pleaded for the killing of families in Gaza to stop.

Why we remember them

This record exists so that Lana Riyad Hasan Ishkantna, and all who are named in this archive, are never reduced to a number.

References & sources