Airwars assessment
On the evening of October 30, 2023, at least 14 people were killed and “a large number” of others, including children, were injured in an alleged Israeli bombardment on the Hamdan family home located on Street 18 in the al-Dawa area of the Nuseirat refugee camp in the Gaza Strip.
Grandmother Hikmat Mahmoud al-Maqousi (72) was killed, along with her grandson, Abdullah Adnan Hamdan (age unavailable), her daughter, Suha Kamal al-Maqousi (43), Suha’s son Ibrahim al-Maqousi (12) her other daughter Maryam Kamal al-Maqousi Al-Zinati (36) and Maryam’s son Sanad Mustafa Yassin al-Zinati (1), and Samira Othman al-Maqousi. Siblings Habib Zuhair al-Bakri (age unavailable) and Rasha Zuhair al-Bakri Dakka (29) were both killed. Majed Alaa Abu al-Jidyan (age unavailable) was also killed in the alleged Israeli strike. The names of the other casualties were not publicly available.
At 8:24 PM on October 30, Palestine Post reported that “14 citizens were martyred this evening, as a result of the targeting of a house in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip. The house belongs to the Hamdan family, and it included displaced people from the al-Maqousi and al-Bakri families, who were displaced from the northern Gaza Strip.” According to @klaib94, they had “fled from Shati RC” (al-Shati Refugee Camp). On Twitter/X, multiple sources, including @ShehabAgency, Snd News Agency, @Quds_feed and @YouthGoDigital reported “the arrival of 14 martyrs to al-Aqsa Hospital after the bombing of the Hamdan family’s home.” According to the Nuseirat City Facebook page, the house belonged to “citizen Adnan Hamdan.”
Online, mourners paid their respects to those affected by the alleged Israeli airstrike. The Pal Journalists Facebook page announced that “The Palestinian Journalists Forum in Lebanon extends its deepest condolences to its founding body member, colleague Wissam Al-Maqousi” whose mother, Samira Othman al-Maquosi, was killed in the alleged strike. The Journalists Forum offered condolences, stating that they “share[d] his grief.” They condemned “in the strongest terms” the “continued criminality” occuring “in the besieged Gaza Strip.” On October 31, Wissam himself posted on Facebook, writing “My dear uncle’s wife…and two of her daughters and a number of their children were martyrs, accompanied by my #martyr mother…”
Samira’s surviving brother Marwan Othman mourned her death too, writing “my dear sister, Samira Othman (Al-Maqousi, mother of Wissam), is a martyr who fled from Gaza to Nuseirat to meet God with a number of al-Maqousi’s family.”
Mourning his killed and injured relatives in a Facebook post, artist Basel al-Maqousi wrote, “Martyrs: My second mother, my uncle’s wife, Hikmat Mahmoud al-Maqousi (Umm al-Abd), my uncle’s wife, Hossam (Samira) al-Maqousi (Wissam’s mother), and my cousin, Suha Kamal al-Maqousi, her son Ibrahim Mahmoud al-Maqousi, and my cousin / Maryam Kamal al-Maqousi and her son, Sanad Mustafa al-Zanati, and a large number of children were injured.”
Reema A. Mattar shared her grief, writing of her grandmother: “my beloved Tita, our blessing. May God choose you, my beloved.” She also mourned her aunt Suha: “My aunt Suha, my soul, you still talked to me yesterday. You went away, my love. It’s over. You were always with Tita, and you ended up going with her and you also took some perfume with you.” She had not yet, Reema wrote, congratulated her Aunt Maryam on her new home. “Oh God, oh God,” Reema lamented, “give patience to our hearts.”
Alaa H Al Maqousi offered “Our condolences to my cousin Mahmoud Nasr Al-Maqousi, ‘Abu Al-Walid,’ on the martyrdom of his wife and son, Ibrahim, and his good-natured mother-in-law, Umm Al-Abd Al-Maqousi, her daughter, and his uncle’s wife, Umm Wissam Al-Maqousi.” Facebook user “Butterfly of Love” prayed, “May God have mercy on you, my friend and lover, Suha, and have mercy on al-Maqousi, and have mercy on your mother, and have mercy on the rest.” Every one of the displaced, she wrote, had died. Because of the strike, all “my loved ones and friends are gone.”
The uncle of some of the deceased, Garam Mohamed, mourned the deaths of “My sister’s children Rasha Zuhair al-Bakri (Dakka), Habib Zuhair al-Bakri and Majed Alaa Abu al-Jidyan.” He prayed for “God [to] have mercy on them and grant them peace.”
Images included with sources show multiple blood-stained body bags, two injured children, and a man whose face is covered in blood.
It is unclear whether the casualties were caused by an airstrike or artillery. While Twitter/X user @ytirawi alleged “warplanes” caused the destruction, user @juawdeh reported “shelling.”
Where possible, names 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 in the evening.
The victims were named as:
Family members (7)
Family members (3)
Summary
Sources (33) [ collapse]
Media
from sources (6) [ collapse]
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Source: @yemnews_ -
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Source: Basel.elmaqosui1 -
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Source: Pal Journalists -
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Source: Umm Rami Abaza -
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Source: @juawdeh -
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Source: Wafa News Agency News