After a brief spell in the city of Deir Al Balah, the family found itself living in a tent pitched in the street in Rafah, in the south-west corner of Gaza, the only place not affected by heavy fighting.
They held out hope that things would get better soon.
Then, in January, Rajwa started coughing.
When Mr Ajaleh took the 7-week-old baby to a clinic, they were told she had the flu and needed proper nutrition and vitamins, but the hospital had none and the pharmacies were empty.
Three weeks later, she died in hospital. She was 10 weeks old.
“In a normal situation you’d be afraid of bombing and airstrikes but not of the flu,” he said. “But we didn’t have the most basic things for the baby, let alone medication.”
“I still cry every day over her – I have no words to describe the pain I feel.”
Rajwa was buried at a cemetery on the outskirts of Rafah, with her name scribbled on a cement slab placed on top of the grave. A bush was planted in the middle in the absence of fresh flowers.
Mr Ajaleh still regularly flicks through photos of Rajwa on his phone, thinking of all the joy the baby brought to him and Iman.
“The best moment was when Mum would comb her hair – she really liked it and she had a lot of hair for her age,” Mr Ajaleh said.
“This war killed her.”
During Hamas’ brutal attack on Oct 7, their fighters did not spare anyone.
Among their roughly 1,200 victims were 38 children, according to the Israel National Council for Children.
Three of them were under three years old.
Mila Cohen was one of them.
When Ohad Cohen, his wife Sandra and their three children, including 9-month-old Mila, were woken up at their home by air raid sirens in the kibbutz of Be’eri on the morning of Oct 7, they rushed to their safe room.
But they were soon discovered.
Hamas fighters shouted “get out, get out” in English, according to texts Mr Cohen sent to his cousin Shir Druker during the attack.
In his last message, Mr Cohen told his cousin the attackers were trying to break into the safe room, Druker told the JNS news outlet at the family funeral last year.
Mr Cohen was captured and shot dead as he left the safe room, trying to shield his wife and children.
Nine-month-old Mila was shot in her mother’s arms. The Hamas terrorists also shot 73-year-old Yona Cohen, Mr Cohen’s mother.
Sandra and her two other young children survived.
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