On Tuesday, December 5th, 2023, an Israeli aircraft allegedly bombed the Abu Musabbeh family home containing a bakery located on Abu Hosni Street, in Deir Al Balah, central Gaza Strip, reportedly flattening it to the ground. According to publicly available accounts, this resulted in the deaths of at least 30 and up to more than 50 family members, and caused dozens to be wounded, including children. Among the injured civilians was an infant girl named Layan Abu Musabbeh whose entire family was reportedly killed in the strike.

Numerous photographs of bodies allegedly being recovered from the site of this bombing were published by MSDR News. Similarly, the radio station Mazaya Fm shared images showing members of the public and Red Crescent recovering bodies from the location. Anadolu News Agency cited the mayor of Deir Al Balah, Diab Al Jarro, who reportedly stated that around 50 civilians were killed in the house of Abu Musabbeh family, and the majority of those killed were displaced people seeking refuge in Deir Al Balah from other areas within the Gaza Strip, including Gaza City. The agency also reported that 50 fatalities resulting from the airstrike were buried in a mass grave because, according to Diab Al Jarro, the existing cemeteries were no longer adequate to accommodate the substantial number of the deceased. The lowest death count was provided by @adham922 which identified 30 people killed, “all of them children, women and innocent civilians” while the highest death count of “over 50” victims was documented by @QudsNen.

According to Aljazeera, the dead and wounded were taken to Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al Balah. The official Twitter/X account of the Palestinian mission to the UK shared the heart-wrenching images of the funeral of at least 45 members of Abu Musabbeh family where a crying woman was embracing a dead body of her relative wrapped in white cloth.

In its Twitter/X account, Al Mayadeen News alluded to why the alleged bombing of this site caused such a high number of purported casualties, stating “A new massacre in #Deir_Al-Balah after the occupation targeted the home of the Abu Musabah family, which contained a clay bakery, around which people gathered to get a piece of bread.”

In its coverage of this event, Al Jazeera posted a graphic video on Twitter/X purportedly filmed at the scene by a Palestinian journalist. The video shows the rubble left from the building, flames of fire and people carrying numerous bodies of the dead and injured civilians. An injured man and an injured crying boy are also visible. According to Al Jazeera Mubasher, limited supplies of medical resources complicated efforts to tend to the wounded. On this, the outlet stated, “It was documented that the wounded continued to arrive at the hospital, with a shortage in all hospitals in the Gaza Strip and a shortage of medical supplies.”

At present, Mohammad Kamal Abu Musabbeh has been named as among the deceased. Condolence posts on social media were numerous. A friend of Mohammad Musabbeh, Muhammad al-Safir, described his last moments before the strike. The two had hugged only seven minutes before the explosion, and al-Safir remembered Musabbeh saying he was tired but that still he “smiled at me and said, I swear I love you.” Had he known this would have been the last time the two saw each other, al-Safir said, he would have “prolonged the hug.” From the attached image the late Mohammad appears as a smiling young bearded man.

A little girl, Talia Khattab, was also killed in the strike. A committed student, Talia was remembered for her diligence to her schooling. Eager for the war to end, Talia reportedly told her grandfather: “Tomorrow everything will be over grandpa, I will go to kindergarten and get the highest grades.”

Whilst describing how this incident orphaned an infant girl Layan Abu Musabbeh to the news outlet Al Watan, a relative Muhammad Abu Musabbeh said that the explosion threw her and her bed into one of the neighbors’ houses. He also described the aftermath of the bombing stating that, “The scene we saw cannot be described. We heard a loud explosion, so we quickly left the house. I was surprised that it was the house of my cousin and his family. The scene was horrific, fires burning in the house.”  Abu Musabbeh also said that they were searching for the child for several hours, and “almost lost hope, until one of the neighbors heard the sound of a child crying, and upon tracing the source of the sound, we found that she had flown away.”

A Twitter/X user @monther_khaled posted a video showing the infant Layan wrapped in green cloth.

Where sources identified the belligerent, all sources attributed the strikes to Israeli forces. At least one source, @rdooan, referenced the bombing as being carried out by “American weapons”.