Between three and six civilians, including a woman, were killed and between three and six others were injured in alleged Israeli airstrikes on a car traveling in al-Maghrabi on May 12, 2021.

According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, “at approximately 11:30, Israeli warplanes launched a missile at a civilian white Skoda car traveling on al-Moghrabi Street in central Gaza City.  As a result, 6 were killed, including the driver, a man and his wife who were inside the car, a civilian in front of his house and 2 other passers-by. Those killed were identified as the driver Mustafa Mazen Salem Kurdiyah (22); Sa’id Hashim Sa’id al-Hatu (67) and his wife Maysoun Zaki Hashem al-Hatou (55); Mansour Yousif Hasan al-Dreimly (66), who was in front of his house in the area; and Nader Mohammed al-Ghazali (47) along with his nephew ‘Abdulsalam Mahmoud Nabih al-Ghazali (28), who were also from the same area. Moreover, the children of Sa’id al-Hatou, Muhammed and Yara, were wounded.”

B’Tselem collected testimony from Muhammad al-Hittu, 28, whose parents were killed in the incident and who was injured: “On Wednesday, 12 May 2021, there were heavy airstrikes in our neighborhood, Tal al-Hawa, in Gaza City. We feared for our lives and decided to leave home. We called our friend Mustafa Kurdiyah, who’s a taxi driver, and he came to pick us up. He arrived at 10:30 A.M. and drove my parents, my sister Yara, 29, and me to my sister Rasha al-Wahidi’s house in the neighborhood of a-Sabra. We planned to stay with her for a few days, just until the war was over. We got to my sister’s house and the taxi stopped out front. It was about 11:00 A.M. My sister Yara got out of the taxi and went into the house. I took out a bag that had our clothes in it, handed it to my mother and took another bag with clothes out of the taxi, and then we both made our way to the front door. I was walking a few steps ahead of my mother. My father was waiting for the driver, Mustafa, to hand him another bag he’d just taken out of the taxi, and then I heard a loud blast behind me. There was shrapnel everywhere. From the force of the blast, I was blown into the entrance to my sister’s house. I was hit by shrapnel in the back, neck, left hand and left leg. I was bleeding and couldn’t see where my parents were and what had happened to them. A few seconds later, I heard another missile land very close to us, but I didn’t know where. I was focused on trying to see my parents. Then an ambulance arrived and the paramedics gave me first aid. I saw the bodies of my father and of Mustafa lying by the taxi. I saw people cover them over. I knew my father was dead. My mother rode with me in the ambulance. I heard one of the paramedics say her pulse was very weak. When we got to a-Shifaa Hospital, the paramedics took me to the ER to give me first aid and took my mother somewhere else. After two hours, some relatives came and told me my mother and father had passed away. I broke down and started screaming and crying. I was in shock. Why did they bomb us? We’re just civilians. I lost the people most precious to me, my mother and father. We were just going to shelter at my sister’s. We wanted to celebrate the holiday with her. My mother had made holiday food and we brought it with us, salted fish and holiday cookies. I was only discharged from hospital two days later. I couldn’t attend my parents’ funeral, didn’t say goodbye to them, and didn’t hug them. When I got home and they weren’t there, I started screaming and crying. I hugged my sister Yara and my brother Ibrahim. Yara broke down. She’s in a terrible mental state. She saw them lying there, bleeding, and couldn’t do anything.”

Early reporting, including a tweet from @InstaNewsAlerts, identified three civilians as being killed in the strikes. @hibshib4 tweeted that there were “4 martyrs and 6 injuries” in the bombing. Raya News reported that those killed were taken to Al-Shifa Hospital, where their deaths were officially announced.

The Los Angelas Times reported that the day they were killed, “Mayson Hatu, a 50-year-old Palestinian mother of two, was determined to celebrate this week’s start of Eid al-Fitr. As she always did, she got new outfits ready for the children, and prepared a festive dish called fesikh, or salty fermented fish. She, her husband and children planned to celebrate at the home of relatives who lived in another part of the city.” Since they couldn’t find a taxi, she and her 65-year-old husband, Saeed Hashem Hatu, asked a neighbor who owned a taxi to give them a lift. En route, the car was hit by an airstrike that killed the couple and neighbor Mustafa Kordia, the driver. Their two young children were injured. It got worse: A subsequent strike, as bystanders rushed toward the stricken vehicle to try to help, killed a 28-year-old man and a 47-year-old man, witnesses said.”

Al Mezan identified Nader Mohammed al-Ghazali and Abdelsalam Mahmoud al-Ghazali as being owners of a nearby shop.

B’Tselem collected testimony from Mu’awiyah al-Wahidi, 42, a father of two who owns a barbershop near the scene of the incident: On Wednesday, 12 May 2021, I went to my barbershop on al-Mughrabi Street in the a-Sabra neighborhood. At around 11:00 A.M., I was sitting at a tailor shop that my brother owns along with my neighbor, Nader al-Ghazali, by my barbershop. While we were sitting there, Nader’s cousin, ‘Abd a-Salam al-Ghazali, arrived and Nader went out to meet him. A minute after Nader stepped out, I heard a loud explosion outside the shop. I ran outside and saw that Nader had been hit in the chest and was bleeding. I saw his cousin had been killed. I looked around and saw a white Skoda that had been bombed, with martyrs inside. I went back to Nader and tried to carry him away from there. Across the street I saw our neighbor Mansur a-Darimli, whom we call Abu Rami, lying on the ground. I dragged Nader about 50 meters away and then I dropped him. Blood came out of his mouth. A woman called out to me from a balcony to tell him to recite the Shahadatain prayer, and he started saying, “There’s no God but Allah.” Then I heard another missile and it hit me. It was four or five minutes after the first missile. I also started reciting the Shahadatain. I didn’t know what was happening to me and where I’d been hit. They took me to a-Shifaa Hospital. The doctors amputated my right leg above the knee. I have shrapnel in my back and head. In my right leg, I have a large flesh wound. After seven days, I was transferred to al-‘Awda Hospital for further treatment and I’m still there. I was later told that my neighbor Nader, his cousin and my neighbor Mansur a-Darimli were all killed in the strike, along with the al-Hittu family, who were standing by a taxi, and their taxi driver.”

A relative of the driver that was killed verified to the LA Times that none of the passengers in the vehicle were militants. “Mahmoud Mazen Kordia, the 24-year-old brother of the slain driver, said his sibling had nothing to do with the militants and was only helping out a family he knew and liked. The Hatus, he said, “are our nice neighbors who couldn’t find a taxi in this war to take them to celebrate Eid.”

A post of Facebook from Saadi Hals indicated that Abdulsalam Mahmoud Nabih al-Ghazali was a member of Fatah referencing a press release issued by the Information and Culture Commission that stated “the martyr Al-Ghazali rose to Alia Al-Majd as a result of being directly bombarded by the Israeli occupation forces on Al-Mughrabi Street in Al-Sabra neighborhood.” However, they do not indicate that he was a member of any militant group. All other sources refer to those involved in the incident as civilians.

All of the sources that attributed the strikes blamed Israeli planes for the bombing.

The incident occured at approximately 11:30 am local time.