On Friday, Mr El-Estal told News NI he would do his best to be strong.
“It’s hard for me but for my wife I will take care of the children,” he said.
“The thing that hurts me is that they will not be able to remember their mother as I remember her.”
Born in Belfast, he attended primary school in the Botanic area while his father worked as a lecturer at Queen’s University.
When he was aged eight, the family relocated to Gaza, where he met his wife, Ashwak Jendia, at university.
Israel began bombarding Gaza after Hamas’s 7 October attacks, in which 1,200 people were killed and more than 200 hostages were taken.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says more than 12,000 people have been killed in the territory since 7 October – of whom more than 4,500 were children.
The first group of Irish citizens and their dependants returned to Dublin Airport from Gaza on Saturday.
The Irish Department for Foreign Affairs said it had helped a total of 50 people to leave Gaza via the Rafah border crossing.
Tánaiste (Irish deputy prime minister) Micheál Martin has said it was “very welcome news” that some families with children had successfully crossed the Rafah checkpoint.
