A teenager or young man died on February 21st, 2026 from injuries from an alleged Israeli sniper wound sustained while seeking humanitarian aid at the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation location near Wadi Gaza in June 2025.

Saadi Abdelkader announced in a Facebook post that his uncle, 17 or 18-year-old Ahmed Saadi Abdelkader had succumbed to injuries on February 21st, 2026. According to Saadi and others, Ahmed had entered Egypt the Thursday before for additional medical treatment but was not able to survive. In Tariq Musleh’s message of mourning, they mentioned that Ahmed had been a resident of the Shuja’iyya neighborhood.

A post from Hessam Shabat detailed that Ahmed had been shot in the head by an Israeli sniper while heading towards the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation south of Wadi Gaza while looking for food for his family. At the time of the post on September 12, 2025, Ahmed was reportedly “in Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, weakened by malnutrition to the point of being a skeleton.”

Hessam Shabat described Ahmed as a senior in high school on the science track who loved karate and had dreamed of becoming an engineer. Ahmed’s mother 59-year-old Suad Abdelkader had been battling cancer while he was in a coma. The family had been displaced seven times since the beginning of the war, from Shuja’iyya to Nuseirat, and had lost two members of their family, while five others suffered injuries.

Aljazeera later spoke with Ahmed’s mother Suad, who told them on February 2nd, 2026 that “My son Ahmed is dear to me […] I have two other sons who were martyred, and I have a son who is a prisoner, and his children are with me. I also have the children of my martyred grandchildren. Some of my grandchildren are injured there, and I am also injured. I could have left, but I refused to leave my son and my injured grandchildren here. Ahmed used to train in bodybuilding and would tell me, “Look, Mom, my muscles have grown!” Now, as you can see, he is skin and bones, suffering from severe malnutrition. I still remember how Ahmed used to be and how happy he was when he won medals. Ahmed was injured during the famine. He was studying and went to get food. He went only once and said he was going to get flour. I tried to stop him, but he refused. He left at 12 o’clock, and I received a call at 2 o’clock telling me that he was injured. They told me he was injured in the leg, but he was also injured in the head. He bled for four hours before being taken to Al-Aqsa Hospital. I went to the hospital in the morning and saw him in a coma. They cut a bone from his head and buried it in his abdomen. After several weeks, they told us the bone had to be removed because it had become infected. I’ve been waiting for the crossing to open for eight months now. Ahmed was a young man who loved to play, loved to eat, loved sports, and everyone loved him. I lost a part of myself after his injury.” Tragically, Ahmed died just weeks after this interview and just days after finally crossing the border for medical treatment.

It is unclear based on local sources when exactly he was killed. One source, Eman Adel reported that Ahmed had been injured by the Israeli army eight months before and had been in a coma since then. Therefore, a date range of June 1-30, 2025 has been recorded to reflect this uncertainty.

Ahmed’s name has been matched with the Palestinian Ministry of Health (MoH) lists, which include national ID numbers. Airwars is matching individuals to the first list where their name appeared. In regard to this incident, names are matched to the tenth ‘Palestinian Ministry of Health List of Fatalities in Gaza’ list. As this list was released before Ahmed’s death, it seems likely he was recorded as deceased when he was first injured and fell into a coma.

Where sources identified as a belligerent, all sources attributed the attack to the Israeli military.