On Tuesday, 18th March 2025, an alleged Israeli airstrike hit a displacement tent sheltering families in Khan Younis Governorate, southern Gaza Strip, without prior warning. The attack resulted in the deaths of at least four women and girls from the extended Abu Khatla family.

The fatalities included 70-year-old Ataf Abdullah Muhammad Abu Khatla (Umm Yasser), her 39-year-old daughter Mervat Ibrahim Attia Abu Khatla, her 38-year-old daughter-in-law Rana Nasser Muhammad Abu Khatla (also recorded as Al-Khalidi, “Umm Ibrahim”), and Rana’s 16-year-old daughter Retaj Raed Ibrahim Abu Khatla.

Multiple family members and community sources posted tributes confirming the deaths. Relatives such as Sarhan Ibrahim Abu Khatla, Mohammed Abdulaziz, Om Mohammad Sh, Hani Awda, Jihad Abu Khatla, and others shared condolences on social media, often listing the same four victims. The Abu Khatla clan later published a collective obituary naming all four women as martyrs, explicitly linking their deaths to the alleged Israeli strike on humanitarian shelter tents.

Sarhan Ibrahim Abu Khatla, in particular, mourned the death of her “compassionate” mother, Ataf, her sister, Mervat, her niece, Retaj, along with Retaj’s mother, Umm Ibrahim. “O God, they are in Your care, so honor their abode, expand their entrance, and gather them with the martyrs and the righteous. And excellent are those as companions,” wrote Sarhan, posting the image of her deceased mother, an elderly woman wearing a beige hijab and a black dress, sitting on a sofa.

Additional confirmation came from reports by the website Genocide in Gaza, which provided ages and names of the victims and the details of the strike circumstances. Each of the four women was profiled with short biographies, identifying them as civilians. Further posts from members of the extended Al-Khalidi family reinforced reports of Rana and her daughter Retaj’s deaths, noting that they were killed alongside relatives in Rafah and Khan Younis.

The names of the victims have also been matched with the Palestinian Ministry of Health (MoH) lists, which include national ID numbers. Since October 26, 2023, the MoH has released a number of 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, names are matched to the eighth “Palestinian Ministry of Health List of Fatalities in Gaza”, which was released on March 24, 2025.

There are discrepancies in the sources regarding the age of Ataf Abdullah Muhammad Abu Khatla. According to the Ministry of Health list, she was 69 at the time of her death, but according to the website “Genocide in Gaza”, she was 70.

Where sources identified the belligerent, all sources attributed the strike to the Israeli military.