Twenty-one people were reported killed and at least one was injured after an alleged Israeli strike on their family home in Block 6 of the Al-Bureij Camp in Gaza’s Deir al-Balah on 25 October, 2023.

Most of the casualties were members of the Abu Shamala family.

The patriarch of the family, 63-year-old Samir Abu Shamala – who owned a laundry shop – was reported killed with his wife, 63-year-old Aziza al-Baghdadi.  Their eldest son, Ayman Samir Abu Shamala was killed with his wife, Mona Sheikh Khalil, and their four children: sons Samir Ayman Abu Shamala, Abdul Rahman Ayman Abu Shamala, Yamen Ayman Abu Shamala, and daughter Mira Ayman Abu Shamala.

Another son of Samir and Aziza, 37-year-old Ismail Samir Abu Shamala was killed with his wife, 31-year-old Walaa Talal Abu Shamala and son, Mohammed Ismail Abu Shamala and four-year-old daughter Zeina Ismail Abu Shamala.

Another son of Samir and Aziza’s was also killed: Ahmed Samir Abu Shamala. With him died his four children: nine-year-old Amir Ahmed Samir Abu Shamala, six or-seven-year-old Youssef Ahmed Samir Abu Shamala, three or-four-year-old Lara Ahmed Samir Abu Shamala and one-month-old Saleh Ahmed Samir Abu Shamala.

Samir and Aziza’s younger son, 26-year-old Ibrahim Samir Abu Shamala, was also killed, along with his wife, who presently remains unnamed. Samir and Aziza’s son Mohammed Ayman was injured. Another grandson of Samir and Aziza, eight-year-old Karim Muhammad Samir Abu Shamala, was killed, as was Dina Afana. A child, Muhammad Wissam Ziadeh, was also reported killed.

Mohammed Abdul Karim, Ahmed Samir Abu Shamala’s brother-in-law, remembered his “sister’s children and her husband” and attached photographs of his niece and nephews, all very young children.

Facebook user Aya Shaheen remembered the “kind and funny” Samir Abu Shamala, and praised him as a “Hajj”, indicating he had completed the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca. Along with Samir, Aya remembered Aziza, the couple’s sons, and “their wives and children”.  Aya recalled “ten years of life and long years of laughter” enjoyed with Samir, “the last of which was when God spared him from a health illness”. They had been “happy” Aya remembered, and “talked a lot”.

Friend Hatem Mahmoud remembered his university classmate Ibrahim Abu Shamala. They had studied law together, and when Hatem heard the news of Ibrahim’s death, a stream “of our memories at university […] passed by”. They had last seen each other seemingly before the war: “I will never forget that you were the last person I saw and said goodbye to me before I went to Ramallah, and we parted each other in a different country.” So close were the two that Hatem remembered Ibrahim as not only a friend, but also a “brother”. In closing, he attached a photograph of Ibrahim waving a Palestinian flag, and a screenshot of a text exchange where both spoke of the pervasive strikes and wished each other safety.

Mohamed Qedama, writing on Facebook, remembered his aunt Mona Sheikh Khalil as “beloved” and the “joy of [his] heart”. Mohamed expanded his memorial post reflecting that Palestinians exist “in a country where sorrows were destined for us” because they had been “born from the womb of suffering”. Attached to the post was a photo collage of some of the deceased, including Samir and Aziza, three of their sons, and Karim Muhammad Samir Abu Shamala.

Karim’s father, Mohammed Samir Abu Shamala (Mhmd.samir1), wrote a Facebook post describing the loss of his family: his son, Karim, “the beloved of the soul,” his brothers, and the “two greats,” his mother and father.

The X/Twitter account @GazaMartyrs quoted Karim’s father, reminiscing about his son. Two hours before his death, the pair had been having lunch. Karim was excited about his coming birthday: “Only 10 days left until my birthday on November 5th.” He had been counting down the days, “planning a party with the anticipation of gifts and toys from his uncles and aunts.” The loss was acute for Karim’s father and mother, who remembered their son as “the light of our lives…. Your mother talks to your pictures every night. Come to us in our dreams a little.”

Facebook user “Alburaij1948” included a photograph of Karim Muhammad Samir Abu Shamala, and asked that “God Almighty have mercy on him, his grandfather, his grandmother, his uncles, their wives and their children”.

A year after the strike, on 25 October 2024, a surviving daughter, Ibtesam Abu Shamala (“Abu Shamel smiled”) wrote about the year without her family, illustrating the confusion and grief that came with their deaths: “A year has passed since their departure and I don’t know how? Although it is very heavy with its events, a year has passed and I can’t comprehend and I don’t know how to comprehend what happened, how did they leave? And how did a year pass since their departure? And the most important question is why?” They were, Ibtesam stressed, “innocent people” who were killed in the house that had “brought us together”. The year since their passing was “one of the most difficult years [she had] lived in [her] life”. Before their deaths, Ibtesam wrote, the family had “filled every corner of [her] life”.

Throughout the year, Ibtesam had tried to “struggle with [her] sadness, [her] longing”. The wish to see her family again was a “yearning that eats away at [her] bones and slaughters [her] heart”. She attached a photo collage of 18 members of the family; among them are 12 children.

In September of 2024, Mohammed S Abu Shamala shared a post on Facebook on behalf of his brother, Ismail Samir Hussein. Sharing a photograph of Ismail, Mohammed wrote about his life: The fourth son of Samir and Aziza, Ismail had married his cousin Walaa in 2010. The couple had had three children: Mohammed, in the sixth grade, and four-year-old Zeina had been killed, leaving an orphaned Salma, a fourth-grader. Ismail had attended the University College of Applied Sciences and held a “diploma in community rehabilitation”. Mohammed wrote of Ismail as someone who had great love for his family: “Since I was young, I was very attached to my family, specifically my father, meaning I was his right hand in all household matters until the last moment of our lives.” He was highly involved in the family business: “I was responsible for the dry cleaning department, washing carpets, mattresses and sofas in my father’s laundry and lubricant shop”.

Above all, Ismail was a curious person: “Over the years, I followed a group of historical, political and scientific documentaries and I felt my mental maturity from these films. I was interested in knowing everything”. He had eventually wanted to live in Türkiye but the war had “made [him] depressed” and he had been “afraid for [his] children and family”. At the moment of his death, he had been “on the roof preparing water barrels”.

Mahmoud Mansour shared a photograph of the Abu Shamala residence after the strike; the upper two storeys have collapsed. Facebook user Omar Jalambo Abu Mohammed shared a video of surviving family member Mohammed Ayman speaking about the strike. Sitting amongst the destroyed remains of the family home, Mohammed remembered how the roof collapsed on the family, leaving him unconscious for three hours. Upon waking, he called for his father, mother, grandfather and uncle, only to receive no response.

Where possible, names have been matched with the Palestinian Ministry of Health (MoH) lists, which include national ID numbers. Since October 26, 2023 the MoH has released six lists, along with an additional list of medical professionals, which was released on September 17, 2024. Airwars is matching individuals to the first list where their name appeared. In regard to this incident, names are matched to the first and second ‘Palestinian Ministry of Health List of Fatalities in Gaza’ list, which were released on October 26, 2023 and January 7th, 2024, respectively.

Where sources indicated a belligerent, all pointed to the Israeli military.

The local time of the incident is unknown.