{"id":745649,"date":"2026-08-22T00:52:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T00:52:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/745649\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T00:52:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T00:52:13","slug":"girl-6-dies-three-days-after-shoreham-sea-incident-that-killed-parents-and-sister-west-sussex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/745649\/","title":{"rendered":"Girl, 6, dies three days after Shoreham sea incident that killed parents and sister | West Sussex"},"content":{"rendered":"

A six-year-old girl has died in hospital three days after being pulled from the sea off Shoreham in West Sussex<\/a>, in an incident that also killed her mother, father and sister.<\/p>\n

Saja El-Khawas died on Friday after the deaths of her sister Sara El-Khawas, 14, and her parents Hassan El-Khawas, 55, and Zeina Alayn, 37, on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Saja had been in hospital in a critical condition since the incident.<\/p>\n

Police, paramedics, coastguard crews and a lifeboat attended the scene at Shoreham Fort early on Tuesday afternoon after a report of four people in difficulty in the water.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Sussex police said: \u201cIt is understood the family travelled down from their home in London to visit Shoreham, and entered the water from the beach at Shoreham Fort around 2pm on Tuesday afternoon, before getting into trouble.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe investigation into the incident remains open, but following review of CCTV footage and initial witness accounts, the current hypothesis is that this was a tragic accident, with no third-party involvement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her identity and death were confirmed in a legal notice from solicitors acting on behalf of Guy\u2019s and St Thomas\u2019 NHS foundation trust, as well as the Palestinian Forum in Britain. The Palestinian embassy previously confirmed her father was a British citizen of Palestinian descent.<\/p>\n

Sussex police said the family\u2019s next of kin \u201care aware and continue to receive the full support of our officers during this unimaginably difficult time\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ch Supt James Collis said: \u201cThis heartbreaking update is one we all feared in the aftermath of Tuesday\u2019s tragic events.<\/p>\n

\u201cI cannot imagine the devastation felt by the wider family of Hassan, Zeina, Sara and Saja after this loss. On behalf of everyone at Sussex police, I extend our thoughts and heartfelt condolences.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe impact of this tragedy has been felt across the country, and I know the Shoreham community, emergency responders and all involved will continue to be affected for a long time to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to thank all of the public who have shared their sympathies and kind words, and once again ask for the victims\u2019 family and loved ones to be left to grieve in privacy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A six-year-old girl has died in hospital three days after being pulled from the sea off Shoreham in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":745650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-745649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=745649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/745650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=745649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=745649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=745649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}