Geolocation
Airwars assessment
On Sunday evening, December 15, 2024, 16 identified civilians, including at least seven children and two women, were killed in to a declared Israeli airstrike on the third floor of the Ahmad Bin Abdul Aziz School (Sheikh Jamil School), a UNRWA facility housing displaced people west of Khan Yunis in southern Gaza. The strike was reported to have also injured “dozens” of others, including a toddler. The incident was reported by multiple media outlets, and quickly gained widespread attention as news organisations and social media users shared videos and photographs of the destruction in the aftermath.
The Israel Defense Forces acknowledged it conducted the strike on Telegram, writing that its forces conducted a “precise strike on Hamas terrorists who were operating inside a command and control center embedded within a compound that previously served as the UNRWA ‘Sheikh Jamil School’ also known as the ‘Ahmed Abdul Aziz School’ in the Humanitarian area in Khan Yunis,” adding that “The command and control center included a training compound from which the Hamas terrorists planned to execute terrorist activities against IDF troops and advanced terrorist activities against the State of Israel.” The statement added that the IDF had taken “numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions, precise aerial surveillance, and additional intelligence.”
The statement did not name a specific individual that was targeted and Airwars was not able to identify any militants confirmed killed via our open source documentation process. This assessment will be updated if additional information emerges.
The civilians killed in the strike included members of three families. While multiple sources reported 20 killed, 16 individuals were identified by name among local sources.
The Tafesh family suffered the greatest loss, with 12 members of their family killed. Among them were 53-year-old Asaad Mohammed Abdullah Tafesh, and his five sons: 20-year-old Nasser Asaad Mohammed Tafesh, 18-year-old Mohammed Asaad Mohammed Tafesh, 15-year-old Majd Asaad Mohammed Tafesh, 26-year-old Samer Asaad Mohammed Tafesh, and nine-year-old Ezz El-Din Asaad Mohammed Tafesh. His daughter, 22-year-old Haneen Asaad Mohammed Tafesh, was also killed along with her husband, 34-year-old Mahmoud Suhail Mohammed al-Bas, and their three children: Suhail Mahmoud Mohammed al-Bas, Zain Mahmoud Mohammed al-Bas, and Raneen Mahmoud Mohammed al-Bas. An additional female family member named Afrah Tafesh was also killed.
According to a Facebook post by Mr. Ahmed Abo Mohammed, the Tafesh family were internally displaced persons and residents of Rafah city. Ahmed Abo Mohammed also shared a photograph of Asaad Mohammed Abdullah Tafesh, depicting a middle-aged man seated on a living room couch wearing casual clothing. The Tafesh family was mourned in numerous social media posts by extended family and friends. Notably, Rafat Husin Motleq Tafesh shared a heartfelt tribute to his brother-in-law, Asaad Mohammed Tafesh, alongside photographs: one of Asaad himself, another of a young man in casual clothes smiling at the camera (presumably one of Asaad’s sons), and images of three toddlers, likely his grandchildren.
The Abu Tuha family also suffered losses, with two children, siblings 12-year-old Youssef Zaki Mohammed Abu Tuha and Mohammed Zaki Mohammed Abu Tuha, displaced from Gaza City’s Al-Shati Refugee Camp, killed in the attack. Facebook posts from Ashraf Mahmoud and Khalil Abutoha Ahmed Abutoha mourned the two children and offered condolences to their father Zaki Abu Tuha.
Additionally, the Al-Sadoudi family lost 41-year-old Wafaa Mahmoud Diab al-Sadoudi and her daughter, Mona Yousef al-Sadoudi.
Wafaa Mahmoud was remembered by her sister in a Facebook post on December 17, where she shared her story along with a photograph of her death certificate. In her post, she described how Wafaa had previously lost her husband and had accepted God’s will with patience and faith. A few days before her death, she had gone to the bank to collect her late husband’s salary, only to be told that it had been suspended. On the day of the attack, Wafaa had called her sister in desperation, saying that she and her daughters had no food, not even a “piece of bread”. Another woman rushed to bring them whatever little food she could however before they could eat, an airstrike hit the school where Wafaa and her children had sought shelter.
The Ahmad Bin Abdul Aziz School is a three-story building, located next to the Nasser Medical Complex, where the injured and deceased were transported to. According to Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir al-Balah, the attack came without any warning. Civilians were struck while they were sleeping, including women and children, with no prior notice. The third floor was completely destroyed, leaving behind a horrific scene. Some of the bodies were shredded to pieces due to the scale of the attack. The school, which was reportedly sheltering hundreds of Palestinian families, was located in a heavily populated civilian area. A former student, Yazeed Jaber Sha’ath, mourned the impact on his school, saying that the strike had destroyed much of the sanctity of his childhood memories: “It is not enough for them to destroy our future, but they also want to distort our childhood.”
Given the high civilian presence in the area, the strike was widely documented, with many photographs and videos posted on social media, capturing the chaos and the desperate efforts to rescue survivors.
One widely circulated 55-second video captures the immediate aftermath of the strike. The footage shows the third floor of the building engulfed in flames as people rush to rescue survivors. The camera then pans to a woman holding a child, surrounded by frightened people escaping the building in panic. The video continues, showing the extensive damage, followed by the arrival of paramedics and ambulances.
Another graphic video, shared by multiple users, including @MyPalestine0, reveals the interior of the destroyed building in an extremely violent and chaotic scene. People desperately try to extinguish the fire using whatever materials they can find. Others cling to lifeless bodies scattered among the rubble. A man wails in anguish beside a decapitated body, presumably a relative, as others rush to cover the body with an improvised cloth. Injured civilians, some in shock and immobile, covered in dust, are visible—such as an unidentified woman appearing at the 27-second mark. The video ends with a man being carried on a stretcher, screaming in distress.
Facebook user Saad Abo Majd Al Shaqfa shared another video showing a lifeless child being carried on a stretcher, mourned by a grieving woman. Another distressing video, shared by @OsamaDmour5, shows paramedics loading injured civilians into ambulances while others flee in terror. In a particularly harrowing moment, two toddlers are placed in an ambulance. While one appears severely injured but conscious, the other child’s skull was completely destroyed.
None of the sources provided a number for how many people were injured, with most sources mentioning “wounded” or “a number of injuries” while @FadelSoliman referenced “a large number of injuries” and Aljazeera described “dozens”.
A video shared by @khaberni, taken the morning after the strike, shows the third floor completely reduced to ashes and debris. The camera focuses on metal fragments, presumably remnants of the bomb. The same footage was shared by Instagram user @badertabash, presenting it as evidence of the attack and destruction. According to user @Easybakeovensz, who also shared the footage, the metal pieces were wing fragments from a Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) / GBU-39.
Several media outlets, including Al Jazeera and Ro’ya Palestine, reported on the strike. Ro’ya Palestine shared a video from the site the next day, confirming the destruction seen in social media footage.
Where possible, the ages of victims have been found by cross-checking names against lists of fatalities shared online by Shireen Monitor, an organisation which has a list of “Martyrs of Palestine” from 2023 onward.
The incident occured in the evening.
The victims were named as:
Family members (12)
Family members (2)
Family members (2)
Geolocation notes (1) [ collapse]
Reports of the incident mention a strike on the Al Sheikh Jamil Boys Elementary School (مدرسة الشيخ جميل) in Khan Younis (خان يونس). This incident was independently geolocated by Abu Location أبو لوكيشن (@AbuLocation). Satellite imagery shows the strike location at the following exact coordinates: 31.346300, 34.294143.
Summary
Sources (72) [ collapse]
Media
from sources (53) [ collapse]
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Source: Khalil Abo tuha ahmed Abo Tuha -
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Source: Khalil Abo tuha ahmed Abo Tuha -
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Source: Saber Ja’afer -
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Source: Mansa ealamyia Mahmoud Abo Zanada -
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Source: Mr. Ahmed Abo Mohammed -
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Source: Rafat Husin Motleq Tafesh -
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Israeli Military Assessment:
Original strike reports
IDF: Yesterday, with the direction of IDF and ISA intelligence, the IAF conducted a precise strike on Hamas terrorists who were operating inside a command and control center embedded within a compound that previously served as the UNRWA "Sheikh Jamil School" also known as the "Ahmed Abdul Aziz School" in the Humanitarian area in Khan Yunis.
The command and control center included a training compound from which the Hamas terrorists planned to execute terrorist activities against IDF troops and advanced terrorist activities against the State of Israel.
The terrorists operated from a structure that previously served as a school, which is yet another example of how the terrorist organization systematically operates within civilian population.
Prior to the strike, numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions, precise aerial surveillance, and additional intelligence.
The terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip systematically violate international law, exploiting civilian infrastructure and the Gazan population as human shields for terrorist activity.