Bana al-Abed’s mother, Fatemah, was an English teacher before the war. Her father Ghassan is a lawyer who worked for the ruling local council in southeastern Aleppo. He was injured on 21 December 2016. She has two younger brothers, Noor and Mohamed. Bana also reportedly wanted to be a teacher, but stopped going to school because of the war which destroyed it.

Bana received an ebook copy of Harry Potter from J. K. Rowling in November 2016 after the account tweeted that she could not obtain a physical copy locally. Her family’s house was destroyed during a bombing later that month, but she and her family said that they survived with minor injuries.

After the success of the Aleppo offensive by government forces, Turkey and Russia agreed on a ceasefire and evacuation of rebels and civilians from Aleppo. When the evacuations did not go as planned, her mother mentioned Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu for making the ceasefire work, and the Foreign Minister said that they were doing all they could to get her and others out. On 19 December 2016, it was reported that Bana Alabed was among the 350 people who were evacuated from the former rebel-held districts of Aleppo on that day after its capture by government forces.

On 7 April 2017, the Twitter account tweeted in support of the Shayrat missile strike ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump as a reaction to the chemical weapons attack three days before.

On 12 May 2017, Bana and her family were granted Turkish citizenship by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

In October 2017, Bana visited New York. At the Headquarters of the United Nations she appeared in a recorded a Twitter message.

In 2018, Bana was honoured with the Rising Star Award at The Asian Awards.