Geolocation
Referenced in
Airwars assessment
During the evening of Thursday, October 12th 2023, up to four Palestinian civilians, including a four-month old girl, were killed and from eight to 25 civilians were injured as a result of an alleged Israeli airstrike on a residential apartment building in the Hamad Towers in the town of Hamad, in Khan Yunis in the Southern Gaza Strip.
Over a dozen local news outlets quoted medical sources as saying that four civilians, including a four months old infant, were killed in the Israeli airstrike on the third floor of Tower G6 in “Hamad Town Towers”.
Videos posted by local citizens on Facebook show the moment the bodies of two of the killed civilians and eight injured civilians arrived at Nasser Hospital complex. Saba.ye news reported that up to 25 civilians were injured as a result of this attack that happened without a prior warning. Journalist Adel Zourob also posted a video where injured women and children arrived at a hospital.
According to Ahmad S Abu Hashem, the apartment belonged to Professor Hamed Al-Sanwar, an Arabic language teacher at Abu Dhabi Secondary School in the 1980s, who was killed in the airstrike along with his daughter and other relatives. Based on the context, it seems likely that Hamed’s daughter was the 4 month old girl. Ahmad S Abu Hashem wrote on Facebook: “News circulated about the martyrdom of our colleague, Professor Hamed Al-Sanwar. (…), his daughter and a number of his relatives in the bombing of his house in Gaza yesterday. May God have mercy on him and grant him paradise.”
Further local activists and news reporters, such as Elbalad News, Gaza News Network or News Around the World reported that Professor Hamed Al-Sinwar was the brother of the head of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Al-Sanwar. Hebrew news agency Beit Awwa confirmed that: “an Israeli army plane recently bombed the apartment of Hamed Al-Sanwar, brother of Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Al-Sanwar, in Khan Yunis, and there were reports of injuries at the place.” Beit Awwa did not report any casualties.
Al-Astal Family Website also reported about the death of young man, Muhammad Kamal Muhammad Ayesh al-Astal, in the strike, but it is unclear whether he was related to the late Professor Hamed Al-Sanwar. His cousin Ibraheem Mustafa Al-Astal wrote a Facebook testimony mourning the loss of his dear one and other local sources posted information to attend the funeral of Muhammad.
Airwars was able to find Muhammad al-Astal’s name among the list of names published by the Palestinian Ministry of Health on October 26th; his ID is listed below.
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 (2)
The victims were named as:
Geolocation notes (1) [ collapse]
Reports of the incident mention a strike on a residential apartment in the Hamad Town Towers (أبراج الندى) in Khan Younis (خان يونس). Analysing audio-visual material from sources, we have narrowed the location down to the following exact coordinates: 31.377384, 34.318570. The Airwars team matched these exact coordinates to a the imagery at timestamp 0:17 – 0:21 from the left strike video shared by the IDF to Twitter/X.
Summary
Sources (52) [ collapse]
Media
from sources (18) [ collapse]
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Source: Mohammed Refat Farhat -
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Source: Omar Samy -
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Source: Al Refai Muntasir -
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Source: Mohammad Jihad -
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Source: Mohammad Jihad -
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Source: Khan Yunis City -
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Source: @NsarHlal66312 -
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Source: @Ibrahemsamy -
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Source: Alquds -
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Source: Alquds -
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Source: Alquds -
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Source: Alquds -
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Source: Rafah Service Official Page -
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Source: Rafah Service Official Page -
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Source: Rafah Service Official Page -
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Israeli Military Assessment:
Original strike reports
In powerful attack waves, dozens of Air Force fighter jets powerfully attacked terrorist targets in the Gaza Strip during the night, approximately 750 military targets throughout the Strip, including Hamas underground tunnels, military compounds and outposts, senior officials' houses that served as military headquarters, military depots, communication rooms and were destroyed active in the terrorist organizations.