40-year-old journalist and engineer Dr. Ahmed Hamdi Abu Abasa was killed during the morning of 13 December 2023 after an alleged Israeli tank fired a missile directly at him.

Born on 1 April 1983, Ahmed was married and a father. He was initially an assistant professor with the Faculty of Media and Information Technology at Palestine University and later became the Dean of the Faculty of Applied Engineering. Leqa’a al-Saadi, a former student, fondly remembered Dr. Ahmed teaching her “Mathematics (1) in [her] first year of engineering.” Having graduated with high school honours in science, he studied Engineering at the Islamic University of Gaza, earning a Bachelor’s degree in Communications and Control Engineering in 2005. He was awarded a Master’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Virginia in the United States two years later. He followed this with a second Master’s degree in Communications Engineering from the Islamic University of Gaza in 2012. In 2018, he was awarded a PhD in Signal Processing Engineering from King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Saudi Arabia. Whilst at Palestine University, he was the director of the iBridge project, which aimed to improve “the capacity of software engineering students, connecting them with the labor market, and improving software export opportunities to global markets.”

Ahmed had previously been arrested by Israeli forces at the Holy Family School west of Gaza City. @Rafiq Jadallah explained that “this morning… after he was captured the day before yesterday… the [Israeli army] released him… then they launched a missile from a tank.”

@Ali Alakhras, who included a photograph of a smiling Ahmed, emphasised that he was “a father, an educator, a teacher, a brother, and a support.” He had been “like the people of Paradise in [his] qualities.” @ShehabAgency referred to Ahmed as a journalist but did not provide additional details about his journalistic work.

All sources which named a belligerent pointed to the Israeli military.

Ahmed’s name has been matched with the Palestinian Ministry of Health (MoH) lists, which include national ID numbers. Airwars is matching individuals to the first list where their name appeared. In regard to this incident, names are matched to the eighth ‘Palestinian Ministry of Health List of Fatalities in Gaza’ list.