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Airwars Assessment
Nine members of the Noufal family, including six children and a woman, were killed and at least five children and a man were injured by an alleged Israeli airstrike that hit their family house in al-Shati camp, also known as Beach camp, near the White Mosque, west of Gaza City, on Sunday, November 5th, 2023.
While many Facebook sources reported the incident on November 6, 2023, the incident likely happened on the preceding day, November 5th as per Facebook post by Rania Safwat who wrote: “A number of injuries and martyrs were reported following an Israeli bombardment that targeted the home of the Nofal family in the Shati refugee camp, north of Gaza. 5.11.23.” Twitter/X user @vikingwarior20 reported the incident at 3:18 PM on Sunday.
Genocide in Palestine (Genopal.net) identified the names of the killed family members as: 37-year-old man Ahmed Attia Ibrahim Noufal, two sons of Ahmed – nine-year-old Mohammed Ahmed Attia Noufal and six-year-old Omar Ahmed Attia Noufal, a 12-year-old girl Nour Al-Huda Ibrahim Attia Noufal, and a five-year-old girl Ghina Attia Ibrahim Noufal, likely a daughter of Attia Ibrahim who is mentioned in the following paragraph.
Airwars’ researchers are also identifying potential names of victims for each of our incidents using Shireen Monitor, an organisation which has a list of “Martyrs of Palestine” from 2023 onward, and includes thousands of names. Researchers have matched a number of names from the Shireen Monitor to incidents where family homes were destroyed, using the surname, date, and location, if available. In particular, among the casualties were also 29-year-old man, Attia Ibrahim Attia Noufal, his five-year-old son, Ibrahim Attia Ibrahim Noufal, a 12-year-old boy, Mohamed Ayman Attia Noufal, and 26-year-old woman Lamis Marwan Suleiman Noufal.
All children were likely related Ahmed Ibrahim Attia Noufal and Attia Ibrahim Noufal.
Where possible, names of the victims have been matched with the Palestinian Ministry of Health (MoH) lists, which include national ID numbers. Since October 26, 2023, the MoH has released eight 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, most names are matched to the third “Palestinian Ministry of Health List of Fatalities in Gaza”, which was released on April 1, 2024.
In addition, some sources confirmed that the airstrike left a number of civilians injured, with children making up the majority of the casualties. Distressing images shared across social media, in particular, in the Facebook posts by Yasmin Mohammad and Bassam Abdulla, captured the aftermath of the bombardment with children lying on the hospital floors, some sobbing in pain, others motionless, and their small bodies stained with blood. Based on the images, there were at least five injured children and a man among the injured.
Two images were especially striking. In one image, an infant girl wearing a diaper and a red shirt, with blood on her temple, is sitting near the wall with the inscription “Nurse Station.” A grimace of pain froze on her face. In another image, an infant girl in a green shirt is lying on the floor and crying, and her face has traces of blood and scratches.
The family share a surname with Ayman Nofal, a senior Hamas intelligence official who was killed in a strike on October 17th 2023 (ISPT0280), though there was no indication found through open sources that there was any connection with these family members and militant groups or Ayman Nofal.
The exact local time of the incident is unknown, but it happened in the first half of the day.
Where sources identified a belligerent, all sources attributed the strike to Israeli forces.
Assessment Updates
Victims
Family members (9)
Geolocation Notes
Reports of the incident mention the vicinity of the White Mosque (المسجد الابيض) in the Al-Shati Camp (مخيم الشاطئ) to the west of Gaza City (مدينة غزة), for which the generic coordinates are: 31.532500, 34.445556. Due to limited satellite imagery and information available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further.