(Previous Incident Code: S1010)

A civilian male was killed by Coalition airstrikes which hit his home in the Al Dar’iya neighbourhood of Raqqa, local sources reported. Two children who lived opposite the victim were also wounded in the raid. The alliance later accepted responsibility for the death.

The incident occurred between 12 and 1 pm, according to local media and Amnesty field-notes.

Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently reported that he was wounded in an earlier strike in the Khadija school area on June 24th before being taken to an unknown medical facility.

Despite this, Amnesty and Airwars’s joint April 2019 report “War in Raqqa: Rhetoric versus Reality” reported that “Isma’il Jurjub, 65, killed at his home, which was destroyed by an air strike. Met witnesses in building opposite, Nasreen (F) whose 2 children, Omar Ali Khalaf, 11, and Abdallah, 10, were injured in the strike.”

In addition to this, Nasreen told Amnesty International during their field research that, “He was at our house across the road, that morning, then he went home for Dhohr prayer and shortly after his home was bombed. My two children were both injured by shrapnel in the strike.”

Filed notes complied by Amnesty and shared with Airwars reported that “This was the only small house surrounded by tall buildings; direct hit on the house.”

The three remaining sources reporting his death alleged that the Coalition was responsible.

On August 30th 2018 the Coalition confirmed responsibility for the event. “(1.) July 4, 2017, near Raqqah, Syria, via Airwars report. During a strike on Daesh fighting positions and Daesh VBIED facility, one civilian was unintentionally killed.” The Coalition assigned the incident to the 4th July, when Ismail al Jarjab is reported to have died. Airwars has assigned both 4th July and 24th June – when Ismail was injured – to the incident. It is unclear if Ismail died on the 4th July from his existing injures, or from a second strike. The Coalition later supplied Airwars with the military grid reference for the strike, accurate to within a 100 metre box.

The Amnesty report claimed the victim was killed on the 24th of June – this is collaborated by a witnesses testimony – despite the Coalition reporting that the strike was on the 4th July. It remains unclear when the victim died.