(Previous Incident Code: R4775)

Three civilians were reportedly killed in an alleged Russian and/or Syrian regime airstrike on Helfaya city, North Hama, Syria, during the morning of 6 December, 2024. The names of those killed, all of whom were men, were Amjad Bin Ahmad Jouma Rajab, Mohammad Kassar Abo Zaied (Abu Khaled), and Osama Suliman al-Darwish (Abu Tariq). Their ages were not found among local sources. According to a Facebook post by Halfaya Media Center (HMC), a local news page, several other civilians were injured, and their conditions were stable at the time of reporting.

As well as being identified by HMC and the Syrian Network for Human Rights, the three men were named in social media posts by those mourning their passing.

Posts mourning Amjad Bin Ahmad Jouma Rajab included photographs of the deceased. He was shown as a young man with brown hair. One photograph shows him standing in front of a car wearing a white shirt and red tie, with formal trousers and shoes.

In a post mourning Mohammad Kassar Abo Zaied, a highly graphic photo appeared to depict the deceased, a middle-aged man with greying hair and beard, after the airstrike. His body was covered up to his neck by a blanket, and there was blood visible inside his mouth.

Posts mourning Osama Suliman al-Darwish showed him as a middle-aged man with black hair and a beard, wearing a grey polo shirt and glasses.

The @snhr provided a similar death toll of three civilians killed, and identified one of the killed civilians as a child – as all of the named deceased were identified to be adult men, a range of 3-4 has been applied to account for this uncertainty. According to @snhr, a house was also completely destroyed in the attack.

Sources were conflicted as to who was responsible for the strike, with @snhr reporting that “fixed-wing warplanes believed to be Russian“ carried out the strike while others blamed the Syrian regime.