At least six civilians, including a child and an infant were killed, and multiple civilians were injured as part of a series of alleged Israeli airstrikes that occurred in the night on October 28, 2023, in the Al-Sabra neighborhood south of Gaza City.

This is likely a significant undercount, with some sources putting the death toll at more than a hundred and calling the events a ‘massacre’. An internet blackout at the time of the strike makes it challenging to distinguish between events that night. Airwars has therefore put the upper range of this incident at 120 to avoid potential double counting with other incidents that day and in this location, and a minimum range of six based on bodies identified from videos and images taken at the scene.

Pictures and videos accompanying the post showed the destruction of buildings in the area – at least one building was destroyed to rubble, and at least five others suffered the visible damage with broken windows. The pavement was littered with debris. While other sources did not corroborate this information, many sources referred to the incident as to “Al-Sabra neighborhood massacre” which implies many civilian casualties.

“Dead bodies everywhere,” wrote Al-Arabiya Jordan following the incident, accompanying it with a graphic video of the aftermath of destruction. People were filmed walking through the rubble and carrying the bodies of the dead and wounded in their arms. The caption wrote, “This is how the scene looked in Al-Sabra neighborhood after the night of continuous and violent bombardment.” Later, the video showed men on a street wrapping a dead body in a white bag.

The news network identified these as the “first pictures from Gaza, the day after the internet and communications were cut off.”

Another very graphic video of the aftermath of the strike, filmed by the journalist Muthanna Al-Najjar and broadcast by Al Jazeera, and also widely shared across social media, showed men searching through the rubble, a wounded man going along the streets while others were carrying the bodies of three injured or dead children. One corpse was pictured lying on the ground while another man, also dead, was pictured with his back to a wall. Men were also seen carrying two dead children on a mattress, one of them being an infant. A fifth body belonging to a man was seen being carried in a white plastic bag, while a sixth, headless body was being wrapped in such a bag. The voice of the journalist kept referring to God after seeing the scale of the human suffering and destruction:

“Oh God, oh God, oh God, suddenly, oh God, oh God, destruction, destruction, oh God, oh God, God is sufficient for me, and He is the best disposer of affairs. Children, oh God, God is sufficient for me, and He is the best disposer of affairs. … This is a massacre and genocide.”

Facebook user Hasan ELrayes reported the deaths of 120 people: “Al-Sabra bids farewell to at least 120 martyrs in last night’s bombing. Glory be to God, you free men. Paradise awaits you.”

Due to reported internet blackouts on the night of the strike, incidents were logged without including the location or names of civilians involved.

“The planes destroyed the infrastructure and electricity poles and damaged the means of local communication networks,” wrote Roqia Hamdi on Facebook. Other users confirmed the same, writing that residents couldn’t communicate with medical teams due to the lack of connectivity.

According to an initial Al-Jazeera alert, at least one home was bombed in the strikes. A Facebook user, Saba Al-Khateeb, quoting journalist Muthanna Al-Najjar, wrote that one of the homes hit in the strikes belonged to “one of the liberated prisoners” and that this resulted in “a number” of casualties.

One photo posted by journalist Hamdan Al-Dahdouh showed the scene of “flare bombs” (illumination bombs)  in the sky over the neighbourhoods of Al-Sabra and Tal Al-Hawa at the time of the strikes.

Airwars has graded this incident as a Likely strike with a civilian harm rating of Fair, given video confirmation that civilians, including children, were killed in the strike(s).