On the afternoon of 25 October 2023, an alleged Israeli airstrike hit a house on Main Street in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood of Gaza City, reportedly killing one person – a father – and injuring his wife and the pair’s child.

According to a testimony given to B’Tselem field researcher Muhammad Sabah on 26 April 2025, witness Firyal Safi described that at the start of the war, the Israeli military dropped leaflets ordering civilians to evacuate the area.

Firyal explained that while her family was fleeing their home and neighbourhood, a reported airstrike struck a house on Main Street, killing her 30-year-old son, Mahmoud Safi, and injuring his wife and their two-year-old daughter, who was hit by shrapnel and lost fingers.

While Firyal did not provide further details specifically about this incident, she gave extensive testimony about her family’s experience throughout the war. Before the hostilities, she lived with her eight children; her husband worked as a barber.

After losing her son, the family sought shelter at Al-Hashimiyya School in the Al-Tuffah neighbourhood, near Salah al-Din Street. After about a month, they were forced to flee again. While escaping, they were allegedly fired upon near the school, injuring her husband, sons, and daughters. They walked for hours searching for shelter until they found an empty house on Shuhada Street, where around 20 displaced people were gathered.

Firyal described severe conditions there: the group was “locked into the house for a week with only a little bread and little water.” On 5 February 2024, the house was allegedly bombed, causing a fire to break out. She reported that Israeli forces then “separated the women from the men, took their ID cards, and began arresting the men: my husband Samir, my sons Ali, Ahmed, Abdullah and Mohammed, and two of their friends.” She further alleged that soldiers used her son Abdullah as a human shield, “forcing him to search the house with them.” On 5 May 2024, her husband and son Muhammad were released, but the remaining three sons are allegedly still detained.

Firyal also recounted being forced at gunpoint on 5 February at around 5 p.m. to walk toward southern Gaza along the beach. She said the journey lasted two days, during which she and her daughter tried to keep her five-month-old granddaughter warm by holding her between them. She described seeing “dozens of bodies — women, children and men” along the way.

On 7 February 2024, at around 7 a.m., they arrived at the Nuseirat refugee camp, where they were transported by cart to Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital and received food and treatment. After returning to the camp, Firyal said the conditions remained dire, with little food or water and the constant struggle to survive. She stated: “We live in constant fear, hunger and stress… we are fighting for one basic right: to live.”

Airwars was unable to find information regarding the strike outside of the testimony shared by Firyal Safi to B’Tselem. As a result, this incident’s strike status has been recorded as a ‘single-source-claim’ and the civilian harm status has been recorded as ‘weak’ in line with Airwars’ methodology. This will be updated should additional information become available.