Gaza Orphans: 54,468 Children Lost Parents Since October 2023

Palestinian authorities count 54,468 children in Gaza who have lost one or both parents since October 2023, according to the Ministry of Social Development. The ministry also records at least 64,000 widows and 71,000 orphaned children across the territory, tallies that include people bereaved in earlier Israeli military operations on Gaza. Its orphan registry lists roughly 3,000 children with no registered guardian, custodian or caregiver.

Mariam, 16, Aya, 14, and Jebril Abu Asser, 12, have moved between their aunts' tents roughly every two days since they were orphaned shortly after last year's ceasefire began. Their father was killed during Israel's 2014 offensive on Gaza. Their Gaza City home was destroyed during the war that started in 2023, and the three moved with their mother, Islam, to a makeshift tent in Deir al-Balah. Nineteen days after the ceasefire took effect on 10 October 2025, an Israeli bomb struck the tent and killed her in front of the children.

Aid workers and local officials have been tracking the toll since the 2023 conflict began. Registration efforts accelerated after the October 2025 ceasefire, when strikes continued to kill family members. Ministry data compiled through late October 2026 puts the number of children who have lost a parent at more than 54,000. The same count lists 64,000 widows and 71,000 orphaned children in Gaza.

Warda al-Muzeini, an aunt of the Abu Asser siblings, said the children have no fixed address. They stay mainly with their paternal grandmother and rotate among their maternal aunts, passing two nights with each. Jebril was in his mother's lap when the bomb hit and was wounded. "He saw his mother die in front of him," Muzeini said. Muzeini lost her husband in an Israeli air strike and raises four children of her own without steady income. Another of the sisters is also a widow. The women split the costs: one buys pyjamas, another slippers, another supplies pocket money.

Wafaa al-Attar, now 13, was 10 when she left home on 22 February 2024 to charge her father's phone at her uncle's nearby house. A blast struck as she approached the door. "I turned around, and our home was no longer there," she said. The air strike on the multi-storey building in Deir al-Balah killed her father, Ahmed, her mother, Khouloud, and four siblings: Rital, eight, Muhammed, five, Obada, three, and nine-month-old Yazan. Attar suffered minor shrapnel injuries. "All of them at once?" she asked after her uncle told her. She first stayed with her grandparents, then moved in with her uncle, his wife and their newborn. "For months, I wished I had been with them in the house when it was bombed. I wished I had been killed with them," she said. "But of course, I know that no one could ever replace my own family," Attar said.

Aziza al-Kahlout, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Social Development, said the counts do not measure the daily strain on households. A child who has lost both parents has lost care and safety and is also kept from school and childhood, she said, carrying duties beyond their years. Women who become a family's sole breadwinners must provide for children while raising them amid destruction. Kahlout warned of "deeply alarming signs of growing risks of child labour, school dropout and early marriage in Gaza," tied to poverty, displacement and the loss of family breadwinners.

The ministry has continued to register orphans and widows through October 2026, with about 3,000 children in the system listed without a registered guardian, custodian or caregiver. Warda al-Muzeini and her sisters divide the cost of clothing and daily expenses for the Abu Asser children. Wafaa al-Attar lives with her uncle, his wife and their newborn child.