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Airwars Assessment
On Thursday, July 10, 2025, at approximately 16:50, a number of civilians were injured in an alleged Israeli drone strike. Ahmed Salama Hashem Abu Aisha, a 34-year-old Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) commander and journalist, was killed. According to reports, Abu Aisha was struck at “the door of his home” in the Al-Sawarha area west of Nuseirat Refugee Camp in the central Gaza Strip.
When Airwars first published this incident on May 4, 2026, no open sources were found to suggest that Ahmed Abu Aisha was a militant. As such, Ahmed Abu Aisha was recorded as a civilian. This was in line with Airwars’ methodology which is employed across all conflicts we document, and informed by international standards regarding the ‘presumption of civilian status‘. Specifically, as outlined by the International Committee of the Red Cross, civilian status is assumed until evidence is identified to the contrary.
On June 1, 2026, a Telegram account affiliated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), published a tribute to Ahmed Abu Aisha, identifying him as a “commander”. As such, Airwars updated Ahmed Abu Aisha’s status from civilian to militant.
Mahmoud Salama Hashem Abu Aisha, Ahmed’s older brother, testified to researchers that “I was standing outside the gate of the house, and my brother, Ahmed, 34, a journalist with a PhD in literature and criticism, was sitting on a bed in the garden reading the Quran. Suddenly, a loud explosion was heard, and the area was filled with dust and smoke. I rushed inside the house to find my brother Ahmed lying on the ground, bleeding profusely. It turned out that he had been directly targeted by an Israeli drone, injuring his back and lower limbs. He was still breathing, so I immediately carried him, fearing he would be targeted again, and put him on a motorcycle (tuk-tuk). We drove him to Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat refugee camp. Due to the severity of his injuries, he was transferred to the intensive care unit. At approximately 5:40 p.m. that same day, he was pronounced dead from his wounds.”
Several news agencies and organisations – including The Palestinian Centre for Defending Journalists (PJPC) and The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) – condemned in the strongest terms the killing of Ahmed. They reiterated that killing journalists is a “flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions, which stipulate the protection of civilians, including journalists, during armed conflicts.” Many of these organisations called on the International Community, including the United Nations, Arab Journalists Union and others to “condemn the systematic crimes against journalists in Gaza.”
Palestine Today mourned the loss of their colleague – photojournalist and editor – in an online post. In the article, they expressed their dismay at the killing of Ahmed for “carrying no weapon other than his camera.” In their testimony, they praised Ahmed’s work and fearlessness in covering the war in Gaza. To continue honouring his work and that of other journalists who had been killed in the war, the agency said that “the blood of our colleagues will not be shed in vain, and that their words and images will remain alive, witnessing, and resisting.” They concluded the post by saying “Farewell, Ahmed, you who wrote the epic of your people with light, and stood before the fire not to be attacked, but to inform the world of what was happening… Farewell, you kind, pure, and brave man… We bid you farewell today in grief, but we vow to remain loyal to you and your cause.”
Colleagues remembered Ahmed as “calm” and someone more given to silence than speech. Still, he was “the first to initiate the jokes,” and “loved to be teased by others.” He had given great care to his doctoral dissertation, which it appears he defended in April, three months before his death. He had wanted the work to be, a friend remembered, “creative” – wanting “a leap that will make the examiners touch on something new.”
He had recently become engaged to a woman named Walaa.
Where sources identified a belligerent, all sources attributed the strike to Israeli forces. According to Ahmed’s profile at the website Genocide in Gaza, the attack happened without prior warning.
Ahmed’s name has been matched with the Palestinian Ministry of Health (MoH) lists, which include national ID numbers. Airwars is matching individuals to the first list where their name appeared. In regard to this incident, names are matched to the tenth ‘Palestinian Ministry of Health List of Fatalities in Gaza’ list.