Ritaj Abdulrahman Rihan was practising the subtraction of four-digit numbers during a maths lesson in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza.
Her teacher had given the pupils an exercise and asked them to solve it.
Ritaj wrote down the questions, but the space left for her answers remained blank - stained instead with her blood.
The nine-year-old Palestinian girl was shot in the head by Israeli forces stationed nearby while attending class alongside around 40 other pupils at Abu Ubaida Bin al-Jarrah School on Thursday.
She was rushed to the hospital but was pronounced dead before her parents could say goodbye.
The family had been living in a makeshift tent after their home was destroyed in Israeli attacks. Despite this, they insisted on keeping Ritaj in school, walking about 1km to and from classes each day.
She was their first child.
“I wanted her to learn and go to school like any other child around the world. We indeed have another four-year-old child. But Ritaj was our first child, our first joy,” Abdulrahman said.
Under the expansive Montana sky, hundreds of members and descendants of 19 tribal nations gather at...
The destruction of villages in southern Lebanon was inevitable from the beginning of Israel’s invasion, an...
Eight-year-old Jad Suleiman was walking home from school in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza...
