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Airwars Assessment
At least three civilians were injured following an alleged Israeli airstrike on a car travelling down the Coastal Road in southwestern Gaza on November 2, 2023.
An interview with a child who survived the strike was posted on Twitter/X and shared by eleven social media accounts, including al-Jazeera Palestine, the Palestine Information Center, and Yemen News. The young girl, her mother, and her two sisters, ages five and eight, were travelling in a vehicle on the Coastal Road.
In the video, the girl said that she and her family wanted to leave Khan Younis, and attempted to leave through the safe corridor. However, all roads to the corridor were closed, so they took the Coastal Road instead. “In exchange, we were targeted.”
Continuing, the girl said that her mother’s hand was bleeding and that her 8-year-old sister had “blood everywhere” and, pointing to a spot on her own arm, that “her arm was open, here.” She added that she did not know the condition of her 5-year-old sister. The video ends with the girl saying “Good people came to help us and transported us to the hospital.”
As noted above, the girl said that she and her family were “targeted” while on the Coastal Road. As sources from Gaza rarely refer to the Israeli military explicitly, Airwars’ methodology considers terms such as “targeted” and “targeting” to refer to the Israeli military. As such, Airwars considers the suspected belligerent in this incident to be the Israeli military. As the young girl appears to be the only original source, the incident is regarded as a single-source incident. The civilian harm status is graded as ‘fair’ given the first-hand testimony of the girl who mentions the injuries of her mother and sister.
Key Information
Geolocation Notes
Reports of the incident mention the Al-Rashid Road (الطريق الساحلي), for which the generic coordinates are: 31.520650, 34.431372. Due to limited satellite imagery and information available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further.