Geolocation
Airwars assessment
On 16th October, 2023, at least six men working in the Palestinian civil defense were killed, and another seven employees were injured (two in a critical condition) as a result of an alleged Israeli airstrike on the civil defense center in Al Tufah neighborhood, east of Gaza City. All victims were reportedly providing humanitarian services at the time of attack.
The General Directorate of the Palestinian Civil Defense held a press conference at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza where he accused the Israeli military of directly targeting its headquarters and reported on the death and injuries of its servicemen. The attack killed the director of the center Muhammad Al-Ghaleed (36 years old), two firefighters – Alaa Abu Ghanima and Naji Al-Fayoumi (43 years old) – and three paramedics – Muhammad Ali, Iyad Salem and Abdul Rahim Abu Al-Bayd (35 years old).
PBS News reported that seven paramedics were killed “as they prepared for a rescue mission” and quoted a video of one of the survivors who said “They targeted a center for ambulances. There are no weapons. There are no militants. There is nothing, nothing but civilians.”
A brother of the killed paramedic Iyad Salem wrote in a Facebook testimony that “he was martyred while doing his duty to save the lives of the injured in Gaza”. A friend of Naji Al-Fayoumi emphasized that the firefighter too was killed while performing his professional duty in civil defense.
One of the paramedics who lost his life in the incident, Muhammad Ali, was a pharmacist. His friend recalled that “he accompanied him for some time in studying pharmacy.”
Some local sources, including there Rafah Health Administration, were earlier reporting about five killed men and two of the injured being in critical condition.
Where possible, names have been matched with the Palestinian Ministry of Health list of fatalities in Gaza released on October 26th, 2023.
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 around dawn.
The victims were named as:
Summary
Sources (24) [ collapse]
Media
from sources (27) [ collapse]
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Source: Ayman.harazeen.7 -
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Source: Ayman.harazeen.7 -
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Source: Palestinian Civil Defense -
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Source: Abdallah Abo Al Khair -
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Source: Remoo Salem -
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Source: Mahmoud Al Halabi Abo Islam -
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Source: Abo Adham -
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Source: Khalil Katkat -
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Source: Khalil Katkat -
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Source: Khalil Katkat -
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Source: Khalil Katkat -
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Source: Khalil Katkat -
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Source: Shareef Abo Al Oun -
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Source: Rafah Health Administration - General Administration of Primary Health Care -
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Source: Rafah Health Administration - General Administration of Primary Health Care -
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Source: Rafah Health Administration - General Administration of Primary Health Care -
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Source: Rafah Health Administration - General Administration of Primary Health Care -
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Source: Rafah Health Administration - General Administration of Primary Health Care -
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Source: Rafah Health Administration - General Administration of Primary Health Care -
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Geolocation notes
Reports of the incident mention a civil defence headquarters (مركز الدفاع المدني) in the Al Tuffah (التفاح) neighbourhood of Gaza city (غزة), for which the generic coordinates are: 31.506667, 34.471389. Due to limited satellite imagery and information available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further.