Airwars assessment
In the evening on October 18th 2023, between four and nine members of the al-Nadi family – including a journalist and at least two women – were killed and others were wounded in an alleged Israeli airstrike on their family home near the Nuseirat Camp cemetery, in the Gaza Strip.
Safa news correspondents alleged that “violent Israeli raids” had been carried out on the al-Nadi home. Amad Palestine news, along with other local news sources, corroborated the information, and stated that four civilians had been killed in the alleged bombing. Users on social media, Samaa Bismam and Haitham Abu Muaz later updated the death toll to seven and to nine respectively.
According to news sources including Safa, and social media sources, one of the civilians killed in the alleged strike was the journalist and director of Al-Aqsa TV, Sameeh al-Nadi (55). Alaa Sami, a relative posted to social media “What a heartache, my uncle, Sameeh al-Nadi, died.” Al Shaikh Abdul Ra`auf shared an image of Sameeh, a smiling, middle aged man, saying “The martyrdom of the son of the club family in Palestine/Journalist Samih al-Nadi, director of Al-Aqsa TV, was martyred in the….bombing of the Gaza Strip this evening.” @channeldraw on Twitter/X shared a drawing of Sameeh’s face with the caption “A journalist and director for the Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa TV, al-Nady was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip, according to the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate and the Palestinian press agency Safa.”
In a series of Facebook posts, Wahaa Taha, Hanan Elnady and Heba al-Nadi all reported that two of their aunts had been killed along with at least four other people in the alleged strike. Wahaa Taha and Heba al-Nadi wrote on Facebook that their aunts, Shafa al-Nadi (63) and Noha al-Nadi (54), had been killed. They also reported that one of their uncles, and two of their cousins died during the incident, along with a cousin’s three-year-old daughter. Hanan El Nady and Omar El Nady both alleged that the strike occurred at dawn, with Hanan adding that “many of the martyrs” were “still under the rubble” and praying “O Lord, have mercy on them with your mercy and heal the wounded among them” – the precise number of those wounded remains unclear. Omar stated that “nothing is known about the rest of them under the rubble.”
Abu Mahmoud shared an image of Shafa al-Nadi, a smiling, middle-aged woman in a hijab, with the caption “On this day, we bid farewell to the martyrdom of the patient and compassionate mother, my dear mother-in-law, Shafa al-Nadi, may God have mercy on her and grant her the highest paradise… the eyes shed tears and the heart grieves, and we are saddened by your departure.”
Where possible, names have been matched with the Palestinian Ministry of Health list of fatalities in Gaza released on October 26th, 2023.
Where sources identified the belligerent, all sources attributed the strikes to 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 around dawn.
The victims were named as:
Family members (3)
Summary
Sources (15) [ collapse]
Media
from sources (6) [ collapse]
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Source: Alshaikh Abdul Ra`auf -
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Source: Abu Mahmoud -
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Source: AccMotasem Guma’a Nadi -
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Source: Haitham Abu Muaz -
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Source: @FPalestinex -
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Source: @channeldraw