Fifteen members of the al-Zatmeh and Ghoneim families, including 11 children and two women, were killed in an alleged Israeli airstrike on the al-Zatmeh family home to the West of Rafah on October 22nd 2023. The house was situated next to Zaid mosque, between Badr and Al-Brahma camp. Initial reports by @ShehabAgency claimed “a large number of injuries,” though did not specify the number of injured victims. According to Alaa Abu Anas, “there [were] body parts and missing persons being identified” following the airstrike. Several sources claimed the explosion type to be originating from an Israeli aircraft.

From the al-Zatmeh family, 35-year-old Imad Faraj al-Zatmeh and his wife 34-year-old Islam Nayef al-Zatmeh were killed, along with their children 10-year-old Hala Imad al-Zatmeh, 13-year-old Muhammad Imad al-Zatmeh, 2-year-old Ahmed Imad al-Zatmeh, and 11-year-old Ibrahim Imad al-Zatmeh. Imad’s sister, 28-year-old Hanan Faraj al-Zatmeh was also killed, along with her husband 32-year-old Ahmed Essam Salah and their children 9-year-old Essam Ahmed Salah, 3-year-old Retal Ahmed Salah, less than a year old Abdul Rahman Ahmed Salah and 2-year-old Nada Ahmed Salah.

Images shared on social media showed the mother of Imad and Hanan Faraj al-Zatmeh, Ibtisam al-Zatmeh, crouched over the bodies of her children, covered in white shroud on the ground, after she had heard about the strike on her home while working at the Emirati maternity hospital.

In a Facebook post, Muhammad Abdel Aziz mourned his cousins, 12-year-old Raghad Farid Ghoneim, 8-year-old Layan Farid Ghoneim, and 5-year-old Karam Farid Ghoneim, reporting they were “killed in a bombing on a house next to them.” Images shared by a page for the Ghoneim family show the children smiling while posing for photos.

Where sources identified the belligerent, all sources attributed the strikes to Israeli forces.

All of the names have been reconciled with published Palestinian Ministry of Health lists with thanks to journalist Alexandre Horn from CheckNews for identifying relevant sources, and Data Tech for Palestine for centralising the datasets.