A woman and her disabled son were killed in an alleged Israeli airstrike on their building in Gaza’s al Shati refugee camp. They were identified as Amira Abdel Fattah Subuh and Abdul-Rahman Yusef Ali Subuh.
The airstrike hit the Taiba building, where they lived, in the early hours of the morning on May 11th, 2021. Early reporting indicated the death of one woman, but further reporting identified a second death – the woman’s son who Al Haq said had cerebral palsy. The Associated Press reported that another man was also killed in the airstrike, citing health officials, but no additional information was provided.
Al Haq found two people had been injured in the incident, with them both in a medium to critical condition. According to Palestinian Centre for Human Rights they had been in a nearby house when the strike occurred. @ahmed_rade_2017 shared a photo of a man identified as Ahmed Alsyed, saying he had been seriously injured in the airstrike on the Taiba building. Other sources reported up to four injuries.
The Israeli Defence Force said it had targeted a senior official of the armed wing of Hamas in the attack, according to Haaretz. A similar statement from the Israeli military was reported by Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor – the home of a battalion commander had allegedly been targeted. But field investigations by the organisation reportedly found no-one had been in the apartment hit at the time. It instead resulted in the collapse of the ceiling of the apartment underneath which lead to the fatalities. Airwars acquired the official statement from the IDF referring to “A Hamas battalion commander was also targeted” but this statement doesn’t specifically reference the location of the commander.
The building targeted consisted of 13 apartments over seven floors. Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights reported that the top floor was hit with three missiles, while he Palestinian Centre for Human Rights said it was hit with two.
A neighbour, Saleh al-Khaldi, recounted the events of the morning to Middle East Eye.“We were at the mosque doing the al-Fajr [dawn] prayers when a massive explosion rocked the neighbourhood. I ran out to the street to find out that [Israeli warplanes] had targeted a building belonging to the Nasman family, which had apartments that were rented to other families,” he said. “I helped pull out a number of injured residents, as well as two martyred people; a woman and her son who were peacefully sleeping in their home.”
One of Subuh’s surviving children told the Palestinian Ma’an news agency, “I bid farewell to the most precious person in my heart, my mother, and I ask God to have mercy on her.”
B’Tselem collected testimonies from two of Amira’s sons, who are also Abdul-Rahman’s brothers:
Mu’az Subuh, 29, told B’Tselem that “On Monday, 10 May 2021, I went to my mother’s with my wife and daughter for Iftar dinner. We stayed with them until 1:30 A.M. I had a feeling the situation was going to escalate, so I suggested they move in with us. It’s really close, less than a kilometer away, but I thought it would better for them to stay at my place, mainly because my brother, ‘Abd a-Rahman, has cerebral palsy. But my mother refused. We went back home…In the morning, I prayed the dawn prayers and went to my mother’s house. I got to their street around 4:30 A.M. When I was about 50 meters away from the building, I heard a very loud explosion. There were clouds of smoke and dust, and I heard people shouting. The building my mother and brothers lived in had been bombed. I tried to get into the building, but people there stopped me because they were afraid of another strike. They suggested I wait for the ambulance and the Civil Defense crew. They tried to reassure me and told me they’d seen my brother ‘Ali at the mosque and had prayed with him. I felt on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I was sure my family was dead. I saw the sixth and seventh floors had been completely demolished. They looked like one floor. I lost all hope that anyone in my family would make it out alive. Some neighbors went up to the apartment and came back down and told me my brothers Baraa and ‘Ali and ‘Ali’s wife Nasmah were alive. As for my mother and my brother ‘Abd a-Rahman, they said, “We didn’t find them. We’re looking for them, but it looks very bad.” Then they told me my mother was injured and on the way to hospital, and that I should go there. When I arrived, I discovered she’d been killed. I hugged her, kissed her body, and screamed and shouted, “I told you to come to our house! Why didn’t you listen to me?!” Then they put my mother in the morgue.”
Baraa Subuh, 27, told B’Tselem that “On Tuesday, 11 May 2021, at 2:00 A.M., I came home and found my mother and my brother ‘Abd a-Rahman awake. My mother was reading the Quran. I sat down with her, ‘Abd a-Rahman and my sister-in-law Nasmah for the meal before the fast. Then I went back to the living room. At around 4:30 A.M., my brother ‘Ali went to the mosque to pray and my mother told me to go to bed. We went to our bedrooms but a few minutes later, before I’d fallen asleep, the house suddenly collapsed on top of me. The wardrobe fell on me, too, and the wall behind me fell out to the road. There was a lot of dust and I had trouble breathing. There was no power and the house was pitch black. I managed to pull myself out from under the debris and went to the room where my mother and ‘Abd a-Rahman sleep. It was in ruins. I called out but couldn’t see anyone. I started removing the debris to get them out. It was only then that I realized Israeli airplanes had bombed the house while we were in it. There was no warning before they fired. The solar boilers on the roof were leaking into our apartment. I started running around the house looking for ‘Abd a-Rahman and the rest of the family. I found my sister-in-law Nasmah and told her to go down to the ground floor. I also found my brother ‘Ali, who was looking for my mother and ‘Abd a-Rahman. In the end, we found mother’s body under the rubble. I started removing the debris that was covering her. Meanwhile, an ambulance and Civil Defense crews arrived, so I put her on a stretcher and told ‘Ali to go with her. I stayed home to look for ‘Abd a-Rahman with the Civil Defense crew and people from the neighborhood. Suddenly, I felt weak and short of breath. I was given first aid and taken to a-Shifaa Hospital. ‘Abd a-Rahman was under the rubble for an hour and a half before we found him. The paramedics brought him to the hospital. Because of the amount of rubble, I didn’t believe he’d survive and when we found him, he was lifeless. When I saw that my brother ‘Abd a-Rahman was dead, I felt great sorrow. I also saw my mother lying lifeless and felt she was sending a message that she wanted to die along with ‘Abd a-Rahman, because he was disabled and we have no father, so there would be no one to care for him without her. ‘Abd a-Rahman was very attached to her.”
Most sources reported that Abdul-Rahman Yusef Ali Subuh was 19 years old, although a single source recorded him as 13-years-old. His mother, Amira, was aged between 57 and 61.
The majority of sources attributed the strikes to Israel. B’Tselem pointed out that “A Hamas military wing operative lived on the seventh floor. He was not home at the time. It is not known whether that was the reason for the strike.” Mu’az and Baraa Subuh, relatives of the victims, said that there was no warning before the strike.
The incident occured at 04:40:00 local time.
