Shortly before 1:38pm on Wednesday October 18th 2023, seven identified members of the Abu Jalhoum family, including a mother with her five children, were killed and seven others were reportedly injured when an alleged Israeli airstrike hit their home in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip.

At 1:38 PM the Palestinian News Agency Safa reported about seven injuries as a result of the warplanes’ attack on the Abu Jalhoum family. The social media testimonies by family relatives and friends posted on October 19th helped to identify the names of the seven deceased. Information on the injured is not presently known.

31-year-old Samar Shoukry Shaban Abu Jalhoum was killed alongside her 38-year-old husband Hani Muhammad Mustafa Abu Jalhoum, their four-year-old son Elias, their eldest son Youssef (age unknown) and their daughters, 11-year-old  Layan,  eight-year-old Batoul and Hayat (age unknown).

Family members on social media wrote responses grieving the death of their loved one. Ebrahim Shwqi mourned the death of his sister Samar, the comment read “The eyes shed tears and the heart grieves, and we are saddened by your separation. We only say what pleases our Lord. We belong to Allah and to Him we shall return Oh God, grant us great patience, and God is the Helper.”

Nedal Abu Nehad mourned the death of his cousin in a Facebook post. He shared a photo depicting his cousin Hani Muhammad Abu Jalhoum, a young middle-aged man in a suit jacket and shirt smiling toward the camera. Hani’s nephew Mohammad Zaheer Abu Jalhoum also wrote a Facebook tribute to him and shared their picture together.

Where possible, names have been matched with the Palestinian Ministry of Health list of fatalities in Gaza released on October 26th, 2023.

Where sources identified the belligerent, all sources attributed the strike to Israeli military.