providedIt was hard to see her in the crowd. She is the little figure in the back.
The soldiers ordered the men to strip down to their underwear. There were even some elderly people. They looked up at the person taking the photo. They were almost certainly Israeli soldiers.
The image initially appears to have been posted on the Telegram account of a journalist with powerful sources in the Israel Defense Forces.
The men looked humbled, frightened and exhausted. The little girl looked away. Maybe something invisible to the camera caught her attention. Or maybe she just didn’t want to see the soldiers and their guns.
The military has told people to stop here. Bomb-damaged buildings stretched far behind them. They are checking the men for weapons, documents and any signs of possible links to Hamas.
The suffering of the war often manifested itself in the details of individual lives. The presence of the child, the look on her face when she looked away, these details raised many questions.
First of all, who is she? What happened to her? This photo was taken a week ago.
Within a week, hundreds died, many were injured, and thousands left their homes. Children die under the rubble of air raids or because there is no medicine or medical staff to treat them.
We worked with BBC Arabic to start looking for children. Israel does not allow the BBC or other international media into Gaza for independent reporting, so the BBC relies on a network of trusted freelance journalists. Our colleagues contacted aid agencies in the north and showed the photo where displaced people were fleeing.
Within 48 hours, the news came. The message on the phone read: “We found her!”
Three-year-old Julia Abu Warda is still alive. When our reporters arrived at the family’s home in Gaza City – where many Jabaliyas have fled – Julia was with her father, grandfather and mother.
She was watching a cartoon about a singing chicken, which she had difficulty hearing due to the ominous whine of an Israeli drone overhead.
Julia was surprised by the sudden focus on strangers.
“Who are you?” her father asked jokingly.
“Jooliaa,” she replied, elongating the word for emphasis.
Julia’s body was unscathed. Wearing a sweater and jeans, her hair was tied into a bun and secured with a bright blue floral ribbon. But her expression was wary.
Muhammad then began to tell the story behind the photo.
The family has been displaced five times in the past 21 days. Each time they were dodging airstrikes and hail of bullets.
On the day of the photo shoot, they heard an Israeli drone broadcasting an evacuation warning.
This was in the Al Qalufa area, where the Israel Defense Forces were advancing against Hamas.
“There was random gunfire. We headed towards the center of the Jabaliya refugee camp, on the way to the checkpoint.
The family brought clothes, some cans and some personal belongings.
Everyone was together in the beginning. Julia’s father, mother Amal, 15-month-old brother Hamza, grandfather, two uncles and a cousin.
But in the chaos, Muhammad and Julia became separated from the others.
“I got separated from her mother because of the crowds and all the stuff we were carrying. She was able to leave and I stayed where I was,” Mohammed said.
The father and daughter finally set off together with the crowd. The streets smelled of death. “We saw destruction, bodies scattered on the ground,” Mohammed said. There was no way to stop Julia from seeing at least some of it. After more than a year of war, the children have become familiar with the sight of those tragic dead.
The group arrives at an Israeli checkpoint.
“There were soldiers on the tanks and soldiers on the ground. They approached people and started shooting over their heads. People were pushing each other during the shooting.
The men were ordered to strip to their underwear. This is a routine part of the IDF’s search for hidden weapons or suicide bombers. Mohammed said they were held at the checkpoint for six to seven hours. Julia looks very calm in the photo. But her father later recalled her pain.
“She started screaming and telling me she wanted her mother.”
The family is reunited. Displaced people are clustered in small areas. Family ties are strong. When relatives arrived from Jabaliya, word spread quickly in Gaza City. Julia was comforted by those who loved her. There are candies and chips, which are stored snacks.
Mohamed then revealed to our colleagues the profound trauma Julia suffered before the day she flew from Jabaliya to Gaza City. She has a favorite cousin. His name is Yahya and he is seven years old. They used to play together in the street. Yahya was on the street when Israel launched a drone attack about two weeks ago. The child was killed.
“Life was normal. She could run and play,” he said. “But now, whenever there’s shelling, she points and says, ‘Planes!’ When we were trapped, she looked up and pointed at the drones flying over us.
According to UNICEF, 14,000 children have been killed in the war.
“Day after day, children are paying the price of a war they did not start,” said UNICEF spokesman Jonathan Crickx.
“Most of the kids I meet have lost loved ones in horrific circumstances.”
The United Nations estimates that nearly all children in Gaza – nearly a million children – need mental health support.
It’s hard to say that children like Julia are lucky. When you think about what she saw, what she lost, where she was trapped. Who knows what dreams and memories may appear in the days to come. Now she knows life can end suddenly.
She was lucky that her family would do everything possible – in the face of air raids, gunfire, starvation and disease – to protect her.
Additional reporting by Haneen Abdeen, Alice Doyard, Moose Campbell and Rudaba Abbass.
