Video Shows Palestinian Girl Surrounded by Fire as Mother Burns to Death After Gaza Strike; CAIR Condemns Israel

A Palestinian mother burned to death, and her young daughter was pulled alive from the flames when an Israeli airstrike set their Gaza City home on fire, an attack that one of the largest Muslim civil rights groups in the United States has urged Congress to condemn.

The woman was identified by a medical source at al-Shifa Hospital as Reem Asaad Awad, 33. Footage filmed after the strike, which showed the girl on a bed surrounded by fire as her mother burned nearby and then being carried to safety, circulated widely online on Wednesday and prompted the appeal to American lawmakers.

The airstrike hit the family's flat in the al-Rimal neighbourhood of western Gaza City at around 4:00 a.m. on Wednesday, 14 October, civil defence teams said. It set the building alight, and the fire spread to neighbouring flats before crews brought it under control. The daughter, Maryam Ghanem, who has been reported as two or three years old, survived with burns.

Her father was killed earlier in the war, according to relatives and the journalist who reached the scene, leaving the child without either parent. Two people were wounded, including the girl, and both were taken to al-Shifa, where Awad's body was also brought. The child's condition was not disclosed.

In a statement on Wednesday, the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations described the girl in the footage as 'eyes wide with terror' and said members of Congress must 'condemn this atrocity' and end all US support for what it called Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza.

The group, which has repeatedly pressed lawmakers over the war, asked individual members of Congress to denounce the strike by name.

What the Gaza Strike Footage Shows

The footage centred on the child. In one clip, she sat on the bed, ringed by smoke and flames. In another, she was carried from the flat by a Palestinian journalist, Ali al-Jaafrawi, who then passed her to bystanders to take to hospital. Civil defence crews said the fire moved so quickly through the flat and into neighbouring buildings that rescuers could not reach the family at first. The clips were shared by Palestinian reporters, aid workers, and campaigners, and reached political figures in the United States within hours.

The Israeli military said it was investigating the strike and that it had been targeting a Hamas operative. It did not provide evidence for the claim, and did not comment on the death of the woman or the injuries to her daughter. Israel has said throughout the war that it strikes militants and accuses Hamas of operating among civilians.

A Gaza Ceasefire That Has Not Stopped the Strikes

The attack took place while a ceasefire, brokered by the United States and agreed in October last year to halt two years of war, remained formally in force. Residents reported further gunfire and explosions elsewhere in Gaza City on the same day, and rights groups have reported near-daily Israeli strikes in the weeks since. The Gaza Health Ministry said Israeli fire had killed at least 1,498 Palestinians and wounded 5,306 others since the truce began.

Talks on the agreement's second phase, which covers an Israeli withdrawal and the disarmament of Hamas, have stalled. The roughly 600 aid lorries a day promised under the deal have not arrived in full, and large-scale reconstruction has yet to begin. Since October 2023, health officials in Gaza have recorded more than 74,000 people killed and about 175,000 wounded.

The organisation's statement also cited the occupied West Bank, where, hours before the Gaza City strike, settlers set fire to a prayer room and a car in the village of Mukhmas, north-east of Jerusalem, and scrawled racist slogans at the site, a local council member said.

By Wednesday night, no member of Congress had publicly responded to CAIR's appeal.