On Thursday, October 12, 2023, a residential apartment building in Al-Masry Tower in the centre of the city of Rafah was reportedly hit by an alleged Israeli strike killing the four young children of Yasser Al-Bardawil – two sons and two daughters – and injuring a further 28 civilians, according to a Shehab Agency correspondent. Al-Hadath specified that the building was “targeted with three missiles on the upper floors without any warning.” Images and footage appeared to show a particular apartment in the building had been destroyed.

The airstrike reportedly took the lives of a fourteen-year old Ibrahim Yasser Magdi Al-Bardawil, his brother eight-year old Magdi Yasser Magdi Al-Bardawil, and his sisters – sixteen-year old Shahad Yasser Magdi Al-Bardawil and twelve-year old Raghad Yasser Magdi Al-Bardawil. Hassan Al-Shareef wrote in his Facebook post that all of them were children of his friend and brother, Yasser Al-Bardawil. Ziad Bardaweel in his post mourned the death of the four grandchildren of his brother Magdy Al-Bardawil.

The cousins of the deceased children, Waseem Al-Zahar and Mohamed Mazen, also grieved over the death of their loved ones in Facebook testimonies. Eng-Moutasm Abd posted the picture of their bodies in wrapped in white cloth, while Alarabiya Palestine shared the images of the transportation of the bodies and the funeral.

The aftermath of the deadly airstrike was covered by numerous media, journalists and social media accounts. On Facebook, journalist Aadel Zourob Official posted the pictures of the two unidentified children injured in the attack, while journalist Mohammad Qoshta shared an image of a Palestinian man carrying his baby after it was pulled from his family’s apartment. A Facebook user Sara Alsheikh Ghanem shared photographs of what appears to be a significantly damaged residential building.

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

There was no mention in any of the sources of the presence of combatants. The victims share a family name with Salah al-Bardawil, a senior Hamas official from southern Gaza, though his presence or connection to the victims was not specified either by local sources or by the IDF in their statements at the time of publication.

Where sources identified the belligerent, all sources attributed the strikes to Israeli forces. Numerous sources stated that the strike happened without a prior warning.