In the morning of Thursday, October 19th 2023, seven members of the family of the journalist Hazem bin Saeed, including two women and three children, were reportedly killed in an alleged Israeli airstrike on their home located in the Deir Al Balah area of the Gaza Strip.

70-year-old Hassan Ali Hassan bin Saeed was killed alongside his wife, 67-year-old Amal Ahmed Salem bin Saeed, their 41-year-old son, engineer Hani Hassan bin Saeed (Abu Ahmed), Hani’s wife, 36-year-old Abeer Khairi (née al-Aidi) bin Saeed, and Hani and Abeer’s three-year-old son Hassan Hani Hassan bin Saeed. Also, the 12-year-old son of the journalist Hazem bin Saeed, Anas Hazem Hassan bin Saeed, and his 13-year-old daughter Aseel Hazem Hassan bin Saeed were killed in the alleged attack. According to PBS News, the strike levelled the family’s three-story home.

The Palestinian Press Agency, Safa, reported that Israeli military aircraft had bombed the home of journalist Hazem bin Saeed, east of Deir Al Balah, leading to the death of his parents, brother, and sister-in-law. About an hour later, at 6:39am, the news agency further reported the death of the the journalist’s young son, Anas.

The following day, Safa, reported that “the child Aseel, daughter of journalist Hazem bin Saeed, died as a result of her injuries after the bombing of her family’s home yesterday, east of Deir al-Balah, bringing the death toll from this massacre to 6 martyrs.”

On October 21st, an account named Without Money Balas announced on Facebook the death of a seventh member of the bin Saeed family, writing “after three days, under the rubble of his house, the child Hassan Hani bin Saeed was taken out. Did he call in a low voice and no one listened? Did he inhale gunpowder dust? Did he call for his mother but she did not hear because she had died? Did he call for help from his father but he did not respond because he died? They were killed by Israel. They did not mourn each other, as they were all dead.” The account also shared a graphic photo of Hassan’s body after it had been retrieved from the rubble.

Numerous loved ones shared their grief online following the deadly airstrike. On Facebook, Thana’a Alaidy wrote “Praise be to God who granted my cousin Abeer Khairy al-Aidi and her husband to bear martyrdom on the land of Gaza today,” while Abdallah Akram Mohammed posted “today, the comrade, brother, friend, and good man rose as a martyr. Hani bin Saeed Abu Ahmed, his father, his mother, and his wife” along with a smiling photo of Hani, a middle-aged bearded man in a white shirt. Mahmoud Youssef shared a photo of Hani as well, with the caption “friend and colleague, the martyr engineer Hani bin Saeed Abu Ahmed, may God have mercy on you, my dear.”

Many offered their condolences to journalist Hazem bin Saeed, a surviving member of the bin Saeed family who lost many of his loved ones in the strike – a mother, father, brother, and two children. A video shared by fellow journalist, Ahmad Abu Alraws, shows Hazem in tears as he kisses and prays over the shrouded bodies of his relatives. Elbalad News and Facebook accounts, Kari Abdallah Thabet and Alnusairat Extended Family Gathering mourned Hazem’s loss as well.

Hazem himself has also shared his grief online since the strike. On October 20th, he wrote “My dear, compassionate father and my dear, kind and unparalleled mother, and my engineer brother… Hani and his wife Abeer and her son Hassan, and my eldest son Anas. Today, my dear daughter, the poet, called Aseel, died. There is no power nor strength except with God.”

On October 31st, Hazem honoured his brother Hani, writing “Yesterday was my brother Hani’s birthday, 10/30, and two weeks ago I bid him farewell with the family, O Lord, be patient with this separation.” In this post, he shared a photo of two men sitting in a garden and smiling at the camera. On January 20th 2024, Hazem shared a photo collage, writing “I ask God Almighty, Lord of the Great Throne, to forgive my mother, father, brother, and children, and to admit them to Paradise without judgment, O God, Amen.”

A PBS News story on parents whose children have been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza sheds further light on Hazem’s loss: “Aseel Hassan was an excellent student, said her father, Hazem Bin Saeed. She devoured classical Arabic poetry, memorizing its rigid metric and rhyme scheme, and revelling in its mystical images and florid metaphors. During the war, when Israeli bombardments came so close that their walls shook, she would regale her relatives by reciting famous verses from Abu Al Tayyib al-Mutanabbi, a 10th-century Iraqi poet, her father said. “When I asked her what she wanted to do when she grew up, she would say, read,” said 42-year-old Bin Saeed. “Poems were Aseel’s escape.”

The names of all victims killed, except for Aseel Hazem Ahmed bin Saeed have been matched with the Palestinian Ministry of Health list of fatalities in Gaza released on October 26th, 2023.

Where sources identified the belligerent, the strike was attributed to Israeli forces.

The incident occured at approximately 5:30 am local time.