On March 18, 2025, 14-year-old Muhammad Yahya Mahmoud Diab was reportedly killed in an alleged Israeli airstrike on his family’s home in the town of Al-Nuseirat, located in the central Gaza Strip.

The age of Muhammad has been found by cross-checking names against lists of fatalities shared online by the website Shireen Monitor, which has a list of “martyrs” of Israeli forces from 2023 onwards.

Multiple family members and acquaintances posted tributes to Muhammad on social media throughout the day, consistently referring to his death as an act of “martyrdom” (istishhad).

Muhammad was remembered affectionately by a wide circle of family members and friends, many of whom described him as “the only child in his family,” according to tweets by @AjjSii and @Qadeyah1. Other family members, including Bilal Diab, Gamal Diab, Waleed Diab, Hussam Diab, Nehad Diab, Reem Diab, and Attaa Hamada, among others, expressed their grief across social media platforms, offering condolences to their extended family. Shared prayers were shared that he be accepted into heaven during the holy month of Ramadan.

Images shared by multiple users feature a photograph of Muhammad before his death. The images show a young boy with short dark hair and a soft, rounded face, posing in a striped Detroit Tigers shirt or in front of a mirror in a blue jacket.

While no further details were provided regarding the precise circumstances of the strike or type of munitions used, the consistent framing across all sources—such as references to the “Zionist bombing” or “occupation” —strongly implicated Israeli forces as responsible for the strike.

All sources that identified a belligerent attributed the strike to Israeli forces.