Sanaa, Yemen – On the evening of March 15, Ammar Mohammed* strolled through the vibrant streets of a modern residential neighbourhood in northern Sanaa.

The tall, slim man was nattily dressed and expecting a delicious meal at a relative’s home.

The pleasant spring air, cooled after sunset, carried the rich aromas of home-cooked dishes as families prepared to break their fast on the last day of Ramadan.

The two-storey house of his wife’s relatives, the al-Zeinis*, was lit up, as with the other tightly packed homes on that street.

Even from a distance, he could see rows of windows glowing warmly and felt the hum of life radiating from behind closed doors he walked past, as people chatted, children squealed, and cutlery clattered.

He was looking forward to iftar and to his wife joining him later at her relatives’ home for a post-iftar gathering.

The street was bustling – mosque speakers echoed Quranic recitations, children chased each other barefoot over the asphalt, and the clatter of bustling kitchens spilled from open doorways.

He was a stone’s throw away when the evening was split apart.

A deafening roar shattered the calm, a blinding orange flash turning everything into a terrifying artificial dawn.

The ground convulsed beneath him, and he was hurled backwards, ears ringing as a shockwave of dust and debris swept over him, stinging his skin. For a moment, he could not breathe.

When he lifted his head, the al-Zeini home was gone.

“Just like that, the house had collapsed into a smouldering heap of rubble and twisted metal,” the 30-year-old civil servant said.

“All 12 al-Zeinis – mostly women and kids – who were inside on a peaceful Ramadan evening, were killed,” he said in pain.

The al-Zeini family had been killed in a raid ordered by United States President Donald Trump.

Trump claimed he wanted to target Houthi fighters and military installations, to force them to stop attacking Israeli-linked ships in the Red Sea – which the Houthis say they are doing in response to Israel’s ongoing blockade of the Gaza Strip.

The US raids continued, and have killed at least 53 people, while nearly 100 others were wounded.

A neighbourhood shattered

Mohammed, palms bleeding from the force with which he was hurled onto the asphalt, raced to the house to see if there were any survivors.

The house had been demolished, along with the one right next to it.

He joined a crowd of neighbours pulling away bricks and iron rebar in search of people, to ultimately realise no one was alive.

“I was swept away by emotions and thoughts, just like my surroundings. I was confused, scared, grateful, alarmed, happy to have survived, and devastated by what happened to this family.

“This was a family breaking their fast together, not a military base. Americans make no distinction between a rebel and a child,” he told Al Jazeera.

He could not say anything further about his slain relatives, only saying he dreaded what would come next.

He vividly recalled how the joyful sounds of children playing were suddenly replaced by piercing screams as panicked parents rushed into the streets, desperately searching for their little ones.

‘They were there just a minute ago’

Like Khawla*, who was a few houses down from the al-Zeinis, setting the table and keeping an eye on her two sons, eight-year-old Usama and six-year-old Mustafa, playing outside.

They were awaiting their father’s return before the family could sit down to break their fast.

With the ground shaking and the explosive sound of the raid, the alarmed 30-year-old mother rushed outside in panic, looking for any trace of her little ones.

“My children were there moments ago, and suddenly I couldn’t see them,” she said.

“I staggered through the wreckage strewn across the street, the air was still full of dust. I was terrified.

“I screamed out their names … nothing,” she said, her voice cracking as she recalled that night.

“A neighbour spotted two small bodies flung several metres away by the blast’s force,” Khawla, who asked to be referred to by her first name only, said.

The neighbour scooped them into his arms and carried them into Khawla’s home, afraid that another attack might follow, and feeling it would be safer to be indoors.

“I chased after him, sobbing and trying to understand how badly my boys were hurt. They were too shocked to respond, but once inside, I frantically examined every inch of their bodies.”

Luckily, the boys’ injuries were limited to bruises and cuts all over their bodies, and she was able to tend to them herself.

“These are cuts that are curable, but there are scars too deep and much more difficult to fix. My kids haven’t been themselves since.”

The boys keep asking if more bombs will fall on the neighbourhood, she added.

“I hug them, avoid answering the question … but I can’t get over the sight of the household whose children didn’t make it.”

* Names changed for the individuals’ safety

This article was published in collaboration with Egab.

The Palestinian Red Crescent, which lost nine of its staff in the March 23 Israeli attack, called killings one of the war’s ‘darkest moments’.

New evidence suggests that some of the 15 Palestinian aid workers killed by Israeli forces in Rafah last week were shot at close range in what appeared to be execution-style killings – an attack the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has described as “one of the darkest moments” of the war.

Forensic analyst Ahmad Dhaher, who personally examined five of the bodies at Khan Younis’s Nasser Hospital, said the evidence pointed to close-range gunfire.

“Preliminary analysis suggests they were executed, not from a distant range, since the locations of the bullet wounds were specific and intentional,” Dhaher told The Guardian newspaper.

“One observation is that the bullets were aimed at one person’s head, another at their heart and a third person had been shot with six or seven bullets in the torso.”

He cautioned that the state of decomposition made it difficult to draw definitive conclusions.

The aid workers disappeared on March 23 during a rescue mission in Rafah’s Tal as-Sultan neighbourhood after it came under attack by Israeli forces. The group included nine PRCS medics, six civil defence workers and one United Nations employee.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), after the first rescue team was killed, other emergency crews searching for them were repeatedly struck over several hours.

A week later, 15 bodies were discovered buried in the sand, which OCHA described as a “mass grave.” One PRCS worker remains missing.

This is “one of the darkest moments in this conflict that has shaken our shared humanity to its core,” PRCS President Younes al-Khatib told the UN Security Council on Thursday.

Al-Khatib also said PRCS dispatchers overheard a conversation in Hebrew between Israeli forces and some of the aid workers, indicating that at least some were still alive while in Israeli custody.

Israel’s military claimed that nine Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters were inside the rescue crews’ ambulances but said it was launching an investigation into the incident.

“The presence of those terrorists puts everyone’s lives at risk,” claimed Israel’s ambassador to the UN Danny Danon.

Humanitarian workers have been repeatedly targeted during the Gaza war, with 408 killed so far, including 280 UN staff, according to the UN.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said the aid workers’ killing raises “further concerns over the commission of war crimes by the Israeli military”.

Speaking at a UN Security Council meeting in New York, Turk called for an “independent, prompt and thorough investigation” into their killing.

“There is clearly growing consensus within the council that it must do more to hold Israel accountable,” reports Al Jazeera’s Gabriel Elizondo from the UN headquarters in New York.

Greek and Turkish coastguards still searching for two missing people from the two unrelated accidents.

Two boats carrying refugees sank in the narrow stretch of sea between Turkiye and the Greek island of Lesbos, leaving at least 16 people dead, according to officials from both countries.

The accidents on the boats, which together carried about 66 people, occurred several hours apart on Thursday, with authorities on either side unaware of the other nation’s rescue efforts.

On the Greek side, the country’s coastguard said that one of its patrol boats came across a small dinghy of about five metres (5.5 yards) in length that was taking on water, and rescued 23 people – 11 minors, eight men and four women – out of a reported total of 31 passengers.

Authorities later recovered the bodies of seven people – three women, two boys, one girl and one man – after a search and rescue operation that included helicopters, vessels from the coastguard, and the FRONTEX European border agency.

The Greek coastguard said rescuers were still searching on Thursday evening for a young girl who had been reported as missing by survivors.

One of the survivors, identified only as a 20-year-old man, was arrested on suspicion of being a people smuggler after other passengers allegedly identified him as having piloted the dinghy, the coastguard said.

Separately in Turkiye, authorities from the northwestern province of Canakkale said the coastguard received an emergency call for help from a boat early Thursday morning, rescuing 25 people after deploying three boats and a helicopter.

The statement said that nine bodies had been recovered and the search for one missing person continued. Turkish media said the survivors were taken to a hospital in Turkiye.

Shipwrecks are very common on the short but perilous route between the Turkish coast and the nearby Greek islands of Samos, Rhodes and Lesbos that serve as entry points to the European Union for people fleeing conflict and poverty.

The Greek government has cracked down with increased patrols at sea, and many smuggling rings have shifted their operations south, using larger boats to transport people from the northern coast of Africa to southern Greece.

Last year, more than 54,000 people used what has become known as the eastern Mediterranean route heading to Greece, and more than 7,700 crossed Greece’s small land border with Turkiye, according to figures from the United Nations.

A total of 125 people were reported dead or missing.