A family is mourning the loss of a 10-year-old boy to Israeli artillery shelling while trying to flee Rafah, Al Jazeera reports.

The family’s home was hit by shelling as they prepared to leave the Zourob area in Rafah as Israeli forces advanced and intensified their attacks on the neighbourhood.

The sister of Muhammad al-Fara’a told how her younger brother’s room was hit by Israeli artillery fire as they were waiting to flee. They had to search for him for half an hour before the 10-year-old was found seriously injured.

“He wished to be a journalist,” his sister Nagham al-Fara’a told Al Jazeera.

“He was helping us prepare as we were getting ready to be displaced from our house due to bombing after we lived a terrifying and difficult night, with shells falling on us,” she said.