Geolocation
Airwars assessment
On 12 October 2023, an alleged Israeli strike hit the home of Magdy Abu Hilal, on Aed al-Bashiti street in the El Geneina neighbourhood of Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip killing at least three civilians, including at least one child. Journalist Adel Alzaarab Official said the strike was conducted in the evening.
Multiple sources identified the victims as brothers, 34 year old Musab Magdy Abu Hilal and 24 year old Jihad Magdy Abu Hilal, portrayed as two young men, who were the sons of Magdy Abu Hilal and Umhm Musab Abu Hilal. Their third brother, Abdullah, had allegedly died two days before, according to Suhayb Abu Nada on Facebook. A third victim, a child, was identified as Khalil Asaad Ardah Al-Shaer. His exact age was not specified.
On Facebook, Umm Mohammad Abu Hilal referred to “two massacres” which hit her family the same day, the first one killing two brothers, and the second one leading to the death of Amani Muhammad Hassan Abu Hilal and her children. The second incident has been coded separately as ISPT0145a. Several local sources claimed that 12 members of Abu Hilal family were killed – though Airwars could only identify eight victims in the two separate attacks. @esraasaid2 on Twitter affirmed that among those 12 victims, three infants “born 10 days ago” were killed, without specifying in which incident they were killed or providing their names while another source indicated that the youngest victim was a 10 day-old baby.
Airwars’ maximum death toll estimates for this incident and for ISPT0145 was set at 12, as no further information was available regarding these four additional victims. As such, it is possible that the maximum number of victims overlaps. Airwars will update its estimates when more information comes to light.
A relative of the family, Um Mohammad Abu Hilal, mourned the two brothers Musab and Jihad on social media.
When sources identified a belligerent, they attributed the strike to the 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 incident occured in the evening.
The victims were named as:
Family members (2)
The victims were named as:
Summary
Sources (26) [ collapse]
Media
from sources (8) [ collapse]
-
This media contains graphic content. Click to unblur.
Source: Yemen -
This media contains graphic content. Click to unblur.
Source: HaSan Khalid -
This media contains graphic content. Click to unblur.
Source: Suhayb Abu Nada -
This media contains graphic content. Click to unblur.
Source: The Al-Shaer Family in the country and diaspora -
This media contains graphic content. Click to unblur.
Source: Eng-Moutasm Abd -
This media contains graphic content. Click to unblur.
Source: Mahmoud Abu Helal -
This media contains graphic content. Click to unblur.
Source: Learn English with Alaa -
This media contains graphic content. Click to unblur.
Geolocation notes
Reports of the incident mention the neighbourhood of Al Geneina (الجنينة) to the east of Rafah (رفح), for which the generic coordinates are: 31.296461, 34.243759. Due to limited satellite imagery and information available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further.