A 34-year-old Palestinian man, Ahmed Muhammad al-Qudra, and his four-year-old daughter, Julia Ahmed Mohammed al-Qudra, were killed after an alleged Israeli drone hit a house in the centre of Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Saturday, March 7, 2026.
The Arab Organization for Human Rights in the UK (AOHR) reported on its website that, according to eyewitnesses, an Israeli drone fired at least one missile at the house, which was located outside the deployment zone stipulated under the ceasefire agreement. The post was accompanied by an image of Ahmed in sunglasses, happily smiling and holding his daughter, who is leaning on his shoulder.
An image posted on Facebook by @Al-Zawaida showed the building reduced to rubble.
Ahmed, an engineer, died at the scene, while Julia was critically injured and taken to Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis. As reported by @Journalist Safinaz Al-Louh, @Street Pulse, @New Life – alhaya.ps and other users on Facebook, she died from her injuries on the evening of March 8, 2026, around 10 p.m., after doctors attempted to save her life. According to a Facebook post by @Abu Osama al-Jazairi, Julia was four years old at the time of her death.
Al Watan Channel reported that Julia had been preparing to leave for kindergarten with her father when the strike occurred, though another source from Facebook, Abu Osama al-Jazairi, said she was returning home from kindergarten at the time.
Julia’s funeral prayer was held at 10:00 a.m. on March 8 at Nasser Hospital. Multiple sources, including Tamer Qashta on Facebook, shared images of the funeral procession, where a crowd of people stood before Julia’s body, lying on a red stretcher and covered in a white shroud. An emotional video shared by Abu Osama al-Jazairi showed the grieving relatives crying over the body of the girl, with a young woman, possibly her mother, holding the lifeless body of Julia in a white shroud in her arms and swinging it. Another young woman and a small boy are seen loudly sobbing.
A relative on Facebook, Hassan Abu Jandal, described the grief of Julia’s grandfather, who had buried his son one day and then prayed over his granddaughter the next, calling her “the little bird of paradise.” The post contained an image of Julia’s grandfather, praying over the body of his granddaughter, and an image of smiling Julia, standing outdoors and wearing a light-blue hoodie and jeans.
@Hamed Elgedra mourned the death of his nephew Ahmed on Facebook, writing that Ahmed had been like a son to him. “May God have mercy on you, O martyr, and may your pure blood be a light and an elevation for you in this world and the hereafter,” added Hamed.
Where sources identified the belligerent, all sources attributed the strike to the Israeli military.