Geolocation
Airwars assessment
On October 8th 2023, seven civilians, Jihad Abdullah Abu Rikab (35 years old), his wife Rabab Marazeeq Abu Rikab (28 years old), and their five children Nida Abu Rikab (11 years old), Tala Abu Rikab (10 years old), Maria Abu Rikab (eight years old), Sewar Abu Rikab (six years old) and Sham Abu Rikab (four years old) were killed in an alleged Israeli airstrike on their home in Az-Zawaida in the central governorate of the Gaza Strip.
Multiple Facebook posts reported the deaths of these civilians as a consequence of the strike, including a post from Jihad Abdullah Abu Rikab’s cousin. Photos shared on Twitter/X by @i_07070 showed the bombed out shell of a house surrounded by rubble.
Shehab agency and an Al-Mezan report noted that at the time people were still trapped under the rubble and therefore the final death toll or number of people wounded might increase.
Al-Mezan’s report noted that seven Palestinians were killed including six children, while all other reports identified two adults and five children killed. All names reported were found by Airwars in the Palestinian Ministry of Health database published on October 26th 2023, with corresponding ages confirming that five of those killed were children.
Where sources identified the belligerent, all sources attributed the strikes to Israeli forces.
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 local time of the incident is unknown.
The victims were named as:
Family members (7)
Summary
Sources (12) [ collapse]
Media
from sources (10) [ collapse]
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Source: Saleh Suleiman facebook -
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Source: Ahmad Mohammed Facebook -
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Source: Ibrahim -
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Source: Ibrahim -
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Source: Ibrahim -
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Source: Ibrahim -
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Source: Aref Hassan Facebook -
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Source: Aref Hassan Facebook -
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Source: MFA Palestine facebook -
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Geolocation notes
Reports of the incident mention the town of Az Zawayda (الزوايده). Due to limited satellite imagery and information available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further. The generic coordinates for Az Zawayda are: 31.429871, 34.370784.