Geolocation
Referenced in
Airwars assessment
On October 12th 2023, at approximately 3:30 PM, an alleged Israeli airstrike hit the Kafina family house in Camp 2 of the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, killing a child named Hussain Muhammed Kafina (14), and a child named Anas Abu Zarqa (13). Additionally, Safa News, Alalam News, and Shehab Agency all reported that the strike led to civilian injuries, without providing any additional information.
The strike which reportedly occured without a prior warning hit the centre of the Nuseirat camp, an UNRWA camp that accommodates thousands of Palestinian refugees in the central Gaza strip. Abu Fayez posted a video on Facebook showing the immediate aftermath of the strike, a severely damaged four-storey residential building and several wounded people being carried away.
Emad Abu Shawiesh also posted a video of the damage inflicted from the strike to his account mentioning that this is the second time the Kafina family home has been bombed. Made In Gaza reported that the Kafina family home was a four-story residential building.
Family members and friends mourned the death of the victims in their testimonies on social networks. Muhamed Abunoor wrote on Facebook: “My cousin’s son, the martyr, God willing, Hussein Muhammad Kafina”, posting a picture of a smiling child in a suit. Anas Abu Zarqa’s uncle Abdulrahman Jaber wrote that his nephew was killed in a strike on a neighbouring house, the Kafina family house. Another neighbor @mahmoud stated that they also survived the bombing of their neighbors’ house. Altabax Saidawi posted on Facebook a picture of the young smiling Anas Abu Zarqa holding a heart in his hands.
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.
Where sources identified the belligerent, all sources attributed the strikes to Israeli forces.
Airwars was able to find both names of the children among the Palestinian Ministry of Health list of names published on October 26th.
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 at approximately 3:30 pm local time.
The victims were named as:
Geolocation notes (3) [ collapse]
Reports of the incident mention Al Nuseirat Camp 2 (مخيم النصيرات 2) northeast of Deir Al Balah (دير البلح). Analysing audio-visual material from sources, we have narrowed the location down to the following exact coordinates: 31.441022, 34.382483. Reports of the incident mention the vicinity of the Nuseirat camp (مخيم النصيرات). Analysing audio-visual material from sources, we have narrowed the location down to the following exact coordinates: 31.458824, 34.389414. The Airwars team matched these exact coordinates to a screenshot taken at 0:00 of the strike video shared by the IDF to Twitter/X (see strike reports below)
Summary
Sources (22) [ collapse]
Media
from sources (5) [ collapse]
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Source: Khalil alghafari -
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Source: Khalil alghafari -
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Source: Muhamedabunoor -
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Source: Altabalsaidawi -
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Source: Altabalsaidawi
Israeli Military Assessment:
Original strike reports
Following the attacks by the Air Force, fighter jets attacked five houses that were used by operatives of the terrorist organization Hamas, among the houses were the homes of: a "Nakhba" (commando) operative, a military operative in the resistance committee and an operational house of the terrorist organization Hamas, where he apparently stayed Yahya Sinwar's brother.