Airwars assessment
On the evening of October 8th 2023, 12 people were reported injured, including a baby, when an alleged Israeli strike hit Yarmouk Mosque in the Gaza Strip. The mosque was reported to be completely destroyed.
A tweet from @ShehabAgency stated that 12 injured people arrived at the Al-Shifa Medical complex, while other sources mentioned that there were casualties without noting an exact toll. Images posted by various sources show a baby and an elderly woman injured near the mosque.
Felesteen News spoke to a witness named Bilal Salama (38 years old) who described what happened: “The bombing was sudden, without warning, we felt that the house was exploding, and after the smoke and dust cleared, the vision began to become clearer. I found my daughter bleeding from the impact of glass flying on her head. We all went down to check on my father and mother, who live on the ground floor and whose door opens directly onto the mosque. As you can see, we could not enter from here, so we went from the back and made holes in the walls, and we began removing the rubble until we reached my father and mother and some of the children, grandchildren, who were stuck under the stones that fell on them from the mosque.” Bilal Salama’s father and mother were taken to the hospital for treatment of their injuries.
Felesteen News spoke to another witness named Hajj Jihad Jarour whose bulldozer, which is how he made his livelihood, was destroyed by the bombing: “We were sitting in the basement of the house, and suddenly we heard the bombing and the house shook and smoke filled the place. As you can see, everything is gone, the house and the tools. May God compensate us.”
The Palestinian Civil Defense reported on their teams dealing with the evacuation of citizens and the transfer of casualties from the surrounding area. Another local source specified that Ansar Central Ambulance Station evacuated the injured from the bombing.
The mosque was located near Ramzoun al-Ghafri on Al-Jalaa Street.
According to Felesteen News, the minaret at Yarmouk Mosque was silenced for the first time since the mosque was established in 1974. Felesteen News stated that “the bombing affected the area’s water lines and infrastructure” and “many of the houses surrounding the mosque are no longer fit for living”.
Where sources identified the belligerent, all sources attributed the strikes to Israeli forces.
On October 9th, 2024 the Airwars Investigations Unit, along with Sky News, published an investigation geolocating and matching airstrike footage released by the Israeli military with incidents in the Airwars archive. In total, Airwars’ team identified 17 strikes leading to civilian harm from the first month of the war, of which the Israeli military itself had published footage. This strike was among the 17. As such this incident has been reclassified as a declared Israeli strike, rather than a likely one.
Due to the scale and urgency of Airwars’ assessment process, all images have been automatically uploaded to each assessment with the graphic filter applied to protect users. We have also included all images identified from the sources, which may also include any imagery of combatants.
The incident occured in the evening.
The victims were named as:
Family members (3)
Geolocation notes (1) [ collapse]
Reports of the incident mention the Yarmouk mosque (مسجد اليرموك) in Gaza city (غزة). Analysing audio-visual material from sources, we have narrowed the location down to the following coordinates: 31.522629, 34.462894. The Airwars team matched these exact coordinates to a screenshot taken at 0:00 of the strike video shared by the IDF to Twitter/X.
Summary
Sources (12) [ collapse]
Media
from sources (24) [ collapse]
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Source: Pharmacist Walaa Elmahallawi -
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Source: Palestinian civil defense -
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Source: Palestinian civil defense -
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Source: Palestinian civil defense -
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Source: M saleh -
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Source: Bougara Demain -
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Source: Bougara Demain -
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Source: Bougara Demain -
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Source: Bougara Demain -
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Source: Bougara Demain -
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Source: Bougara Demain -
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Source: Bougara Demain -
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Source: Abu Ahmad -
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Source: Abu Ahmad -
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Source: Abu Ahmad -
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Source: Abu Ahmad -
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Source: Medical services - Gaza Strip -
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Source: Medical services - Gaza Strip -
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Source: Medical services - Gaza Strip -
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Source: Medical services - Gaza Strip -
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Source: Medical services - Gaza Strip -
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Source: Medical services - Gaza Strip -
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Source: Mou’men Hassouna -
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