Hala Salem Darwish, 18, is on life support inside Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Gaza. Another Palestinian, 13-year-old Mohammed Sabr al-Sheikh, is fighting for his life in a hospital in the occupied West Bank.
Hala was preparing dinner for her family and Mohammed was playing football when Israeli snipers shot them in the head.
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Their stories, spanning a distance of approximately 100 km (62 mi), highlight the persistent and deadly violence faced by Palestinian youth in the occupied Palestinian territory.
Hala: A shattered marriage
Hala, who was taking refuge in the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza, was looking forward to her wedding on May 1. The youngest daughter in her family, she had already prepared her mehendi and finalized the preparations for the celebration.
Those plans were shattered when an Israeli sniper stationed east of the camp shot her in the head while she was preparing dinner inside her home near a clinic run by the United Nations Refugee Agency for Palestinians (UNRWA). She could join the more than 72,000 Palestinians killed by Israel since October 2023. About 40,000 of those killed were women and children.
“She had prepared everything for the henna, the wedding and all those traditions you know,” Mohammed Abu Jabr, a journalist and relative of Hala’s fiancé, told Al Jazeera.
“But the pill ended this dream.” Hala remains on life support in the intensive care unit of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in critical condition.
In the occupied West Bank, a similar tragedy occurred in the Jalazon refugee camp on 9 April. Thirteen-year-old Mohammed was playing outside his home when Israeli forces raided the camp amid heavy shelling.
Mohammed was shot in the head by an Israeli sniper.
“The bullet hit him in the head and went out,” his father Sabr al-Sheikh told Al Jazeera.
Mohammed is currently receiving treatment at the Istishari Arab Hospital in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. Dr. Abdel Wahab Kharousha said the collision was so severe that part of the boy’s brain came out of the wound.
Mohammed remains under constant anesthesia in the Neurology Intensive Care Unit to control pressure on his brain. His father said, “Mohammed is a hard-working boy.” “He loved playing football…There was no shortage of doctors.”
A systemic impact on youth
The shootings of Hala and Mohammed are part of a broader increase in Israeli violence against Palestinian minors.
On Tuesday morning, 16-year-old Mohammed Majdi al-Jabri was killed when he was hit by a vehicle in the security convoy of an Israeli minister in Hebron. According to reports, the vehicle belonged to the company providing security to Settlement Minister Orit Strock.
At least four Palestinians, including two boys aged 14 and 16, were killed in attacks by Israeli forces and settlers in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday. In Gaza, at least seven Palestinians, including a child, were killed in a series of attacks despite a “truce” from October 2025. Israel has killed nearly 800 Palestinians in violation of the US-brokered “ceasefire”.
Israeli forces have killed 237 children in the occupied West Bank between October 2023 and mid-April, according to the Palestinian government’s media office.
Palestinian journalist Maryam Barghouti said Israel has launched “intense and increasingly violent” attacks in the occupied West Bank “with the aim of evicting Palestinians from their homes and lands.”
Thousands of Palestinians have been displaced by increased settler violence and Israeli actions in the West Bank. More than 700,000 residents live in illegal settlements built on private Palestinian land. The settlements are considered illegal under international law and are seen as the biggest obstacle to the realization of a Palestinian state as part of the so-called two-state solution.
Israeli soldiers have used sexual exploitation to force Palestinians from their homes in the occupied West Bank, a group of international humanitarian organizations said in a report published on Monday.
“Sexual violence is used to pressure communities to make decisions about whether to leave their homes and lands, and to change patterns of daily life,” report Said.
