In the early hours of Monday, October 9, 2023, Israeli forces bombed a family home belonging to Raafat Abu Harb Hussein Hilal – a claimed member and a leader of the militant group the Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades – in Yabna camp (or Bashit Camp, according to some sources), in the city of Rafah in southern Gaza. According to publicly available information, a combatant Hilal was killed alongside at least 24 identified civilians, including at least 13 women (among them a pregnant woman) and four children. At least 40 civilians were reportedly wounded.

On October 19, 2023, the Israeli military announced via it’s English-language Telegram account that ‘Israeli fighter jets struck…Rafat Abu Harb Hilal’. As a result, this incident was updated from a ‘likely’ strike to ‘declared’.

Following this event, AFP news agency made available a photograph that purportedly showed the destruction caused by the alleged bombing, captioned “Members of the Palestinian Abu Hilal family inspect the damage inside their home following overnight Israeli air strikes on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, on October 9, 2023.”

Members of five families, including Abu Hilal, Barhoum, Zanoun and Labad families, were among the victims of the strike. Their family members wrote Facebook testimonies shedding some light on the identities of the victims of the deadly attack.

According to a report by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, the strike occurred at approximately 01:20 and led to the complete destruction of the Abu Hilal house and damaged several houses adjacent to it. It led to the death of 19 civilians, including nine women and four children, and the injury of 40 others. A post from Adel Zarab reported that “more than 80 injuries” resulted from attacks in Rafah but it is unclear if they all occurred during this incident. News agencies Associated Press and Anadolu Agency also reported that 19 civilians were killed, citing a doctor Talat Barhoum at the nearby Al-Najjar Hospital. However, Twitter account @khalil3 reported about 25 killed civilians in the Abu Hilal family house. Airwars identified the names of 24 civilians killed and the identity of up to 36 total victims killed.

The Abu Hilal family posted pictures of the funerals of the family members and the prayer in mosques on Facebook. One body, presumably of Raafat though it was covered, was draped in a flag of a militant organisation with a gun and the word resistance (مقاومة) on it – a word used often by militant groups in Gaza. The Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades are the militant wing of the Popular Resistance Committees – a loose grouping of armed factions in Gaza.

The Abu Hilal family posted about the late 31-year old Yahya Khalid Harb Abu Hilal who was killed alongside his brother, 30-year-old Ezz al-Deen Khaled Harb Abu Halal, his wife, their three-year-old son  Khaled Yahya Khaled Abu Hilal and their two daughters,  six-year-old Nisreen Yahya Khaled Abu Hilal and an infant daughter Wateen Yahya Khaled Abu Hilal. 

Other victims included Abu Saqr Abu Hilal, his wife Sabreen Hussein Abu Hilal (30), and their children (whose names were not published), and Rana Khaled Abu Hilal, a wife of Abd Raafat who was not killed in the attack. A Facebook post by NööÑöö Àĺì mentions some other victims of this attack from the Abu Hilal family, namely, 33-year-old Muhammad Sabr Mahmoud Abu Hilal, 47-year-old Suha Hamada Mahmoud Abu Hilal (Abu Arab) and her two daughters (whose names were not published), a 28-year old pregnant Nada Khaled Musa Abu Hilal, Abdul Karim Harb Hussein Abu Hilal (70) and his wife Rasmiya halil Muhammad Abu Hilal (70).

In a Facebook post Ahmad Sami Barhom wrote that Ayman Sabri Barhoum who was not killed in the strike lost his 61-year old mother Sabah Muhammad Ahmad Barhoum, his 20-year old sister Nibal (Nepal) Sabri Barhoum, his 24-year old wife Asmaa Bassam Mohammad Barhoum and their 2-year old son Abdul Rahman Ayman Sabri Barhoum in the “brutal bombing of Rafah.” A nephew of Asmaa Bassam Mohammad Barhoum, Talat Barhoum, also mourned the death of the Barhoum family members in a Facebook testimony. A list provided by Najia Mahmoud included “Alaa Barhoum’s mother” but it is unclear if she is one of the people mentioned above.

A Labad family member Umm Ibrahim Labad and her grandson, the child Saad Mahmoud Labad (2) were also killed in the strike and remembered by Umm Ibrahim Labad’s nephew, Mohammed Atalla, in a Facebook post. Nabila Suleiman Labad  (60) was also mentioned as a victim in a Facebook post by Diwan Al-Areesh – this may be Umm Ibrahim Labad but it is unclear from the sources.

According to the post by Abu Kamal Zanoun, six members of the Zanoun family lost their lives in the attack, namely, Hajj Zaki Nassar Zanoun Abu Khaled (70), his wife Badriya Zanoun Barhoum (71), his nephew Nassar Salim Zanoun Abu Salim (35), his relatives Ahmed Azmi Zanoun (16), and Soha Azmi Zanoun (18). The late Hajj Zaki Nassar Zanoun Abu Khaled and his wife were mentioned as neigbours of Abu Hilal in the post by Saqie Hilal. A post from Jehad Zanoon included an image of Nassar “honouring his cousin” Soha, and both can be seen holding an award. According to Raed Hasan Zanoon, the funeral for the members of the Zanoun family took place at Ebad Al-Rahman Mosque and they were buried at the Eastern Cemetery.

The tweet from @vivapalestineee included additional names killed in “the bombing of the Abu Hilal family home”: Shadia Saleh Marjouna (46), Marzouqa Freih Abu Jazar (92), and Bilal Saeed Abu Jazar (30), in addition to an unknown woman and the unknown remains of two people from the Dhair family. A Facebook post from Adel Zarab includes the additional name Abdullah Hisham Dahil but it is unclear if they were killed in this attack, as the post only refers to “Rafah” as the location.

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

On October 19, 2023, posting to it’s English-language Telegram account, the Israeli military announced that “IDF fighter jets, based on ISA intelligence, struck the head of the military branch of the “Popular Resistance Committees” terror organization in Rafah, Rafat Harb Hussein Abu Hilal.” As a result, Airwars updated the strike status of this incident from ‘likely’ to ‘declared’.