*”In a crowd of men ordered to strip down to their underwear, it’s hard to spot her—a tiny figure near the back. The men gaze up, almost certainly toward an Israeli soldier capturing the moment.
The haunting image, first appearing on a Telegram account by a journalist with close ties to the Israel Defense Forces, shows men appearing abject, exhausted, and fearful. Amidst them, a small girl stands apart, noticed by a BBC producer for her gaze looking away, perhaps distracted or unwilling to look toward the soldiers and their guns.
Around her, bomb-blasted buildings stretch into the distance as soldiers search for any trace of weaponry or connection to Hamas among the men.
The war’s tragedy often reveals itself through these individual lives. In the details of this photo, the child’s presence, her expression, raises countless questions—above all, ‘Who was she? What happened to her?’ This image was captured just a week ago.
That week saw hundreds killed, thousands displaced, children left untreated due to scarce medicine and medical staff. Teaming up with the BBC Arabic Gaza Today programme, a search began to find the girl. While Israel restricts international media access in Gaza, BBC relied on its network of freelance journalists. A photograph circulated through aid agencies in the northern camps where the displaced had fled.
After 48 hours, a message came through: ‘We have found her.’ Three-year-old Julia Abu Warda was safe. Our journalist found her with her family in Gaza City, where many from Jabalia have relocated. Amid the eerie sound of a drone overhead, Julia sat watching animated chickens on TV, surprised at a stranger’s sudden attention.
In the photograph, Julia sits on her father Mohammed’s knee, her hair in two buns tied with bright blue bobbles, wearing a peach-colored jumper. Her father recalled the series of events behind the photo. They had been displaced five times in just 21 days, each time fleeing air strikes and gunfire. On the day the photo was taken, the family heard an Israeli drone issuing an evacuation warning in the Al-Khalufa district.
Carrying essentials, the family, including Julia’s mother Amal, her 15-month-old brother Hamza, and other relatives, headed toward Jabalia. In the chaos, Julia and her father became separated from the others.
As they continued with the throng of fleeing people, the harsh reality of war was unavoidable. ‘We saw destruction and bodies scattered on the ground,’ Mohammed recalled. At an Israeli checkpoint, soldiers on tanks and on the ground ordered the men to strip to their underwear—a routine search for weapons. For six to seven hours, they waited under military scrutiny. While Julia appeared calm in the photo, her father described her distress afterward: ‘She started screaming and asked for her mother.’
The family eventually reunited, and in the crowded quarters of Gaza City, news travels fast. Julia’s relatives comforted her, offering sweets and potato chips—a rare treat in their situation.
Mohammed then revealed another layer of Julia’s trauma. Her seven-year-old cousin Yahya, her playmate, had been killed by a drone strike just weeks earlier. ‘Life used to be normal. She would run and play,’ he said. ‘But now, whenever there’s shelling, she points and says, “plane!” As we remain trapped, she looks up and points toward the drone flying above.’”*
