She is a 7-year-old with dimples, pink hair ribbons, a missing front tooth and halting English who first captured global attention three months ago with Twitter messages about bombs, death and despair in eastern Aleppo, the rebel-held section of the Syrian city.

The girl, Bana al-Abed, has since attracted more than 220,000 followers on Twitter, where her account says it is managed by her mother, Fatemah, who also posts messages there. Bana’s Twitter followers include the best-selling author J.K. Rowling, who was so taken with her story of survival that she sent her Harry Potter e-books. Western news organizations have produced articles and television segments extolling Bana’s pluckiness in the face of fear, and she was the subject of a New York Times column in October.

So when Bana’s Twitter account, @AlabedBana, was deactivated last weekend as Syrian military forces advanced into eastern Aleppo, many worried that she had been killed — only to learn on Tuesday that the account had reappeared.