Geolocation
Airwars assessment
Between one and two civilians, including a child, were killed and another civilian, a child, was injured in artillery strikes on the Zalata neighborhood in Al-Shoka, eastern Rafah on May 12, 2021.
According to @PalinfoAr, “an elderly man was killed, and a child was wounded by an Israeli artillery shelling of agricultural land east of Rafah”. However, Israel-Palestine Timeline reported that “the soldiers killed an elderly Palestinian man, and a child, when the army fired missiles into agricultural lands”.
A post from Abo Ashraf identified the name of the elderly man: Hammad Ayyad Mansour al-Dabbari, 86 years old.
Diaa Al Badri posted on Facebook about the life of Hammad: “Hammad Ayyad al-Dabari was born in al-Amarah – Beersheba district in 1935, and on its land he grew up, joined al-Amarah school and finished the ninth grade, and after the Zionist gangs committed many heinous massacres and terrorist acts against the Palestinian people, the family of Ayyad al-Dabari was forced to flee to what was left from their land east of Rafah, and after repeated Zionist attacks on various places in the Gaza Strip, Lieutenant-Colonel Mustafa Hafez was assigned in 1955 to form a battalion of Palestinian fedayeen to work behind enemy lines. [He was] in charge of reconnaissance operations inside the occupied Palestinian Territories and determining the goals according to the instructions of the leadership, and he participated in the war of 1956 and 1967, then he continued his struggle in the bases of the guerrillas in the outer squares, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon”.
Al Mezan reported that “at 8:20pm, medical sources at Rafah’s Abu Yousef Al-Najjar Hospital announced the death of Hammad Ayyad Mansour Al-Dabari, 86, as a result of an injury to his head caused by the shrapnel of a missile that hit near his home in the Zalata neighborhood in Al-Shoka, eastern Rafah”.
The National News Agency obtained a statement from the “Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine” and its military wing, the “National Resistance Brigades” mourning Hammad Ayyad al-Dabari, who died in an Israeli raid in the Shoka area east of Rafah, while performing his national duty.
Multiple sources identified Israel as responsible for the shelling. The NGO Monitor differs in that it reported that “Al Haq and PCHR both reported that the circumstances of the incident were still under investigation, but “coincided with the firing and interception of homemade Palestinian rockets from the Israeli Iron Dome system, and the firing of Israeli artillery shells.” It also reported, “Omission of Hamas role: Al Haq’s and PCHR’s explanations are inconsistent with Iron Dome’s capabilities and deployment in intercepting rockets, which could not conceivably have intercepted a rocket over Rafah.”
The NGO Monitor included this incident in a table titled, “Palestinian Casualties Likely Caused by Palestinian Weapons.”
The incident occured at approximately 8:20 pm local time.
The victims were named as:
Summary
Sources (14) [ collapse]
Media
from sources (3) [ collapse]
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Image of Hammad Ayyad Mansour al-Dabbari, killed in alleged Israeli airstrikes on agricultural land east of Rafah on May 12, 2021. (Image posted by Diaa Al Badri via Facebook)
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Image of Hammad Ayyad Mansour al-Dabbari, killed in alleged Israeli airstrikes on agricultural land east of Rafah on May 12, 2021. (Image posted by Abo Ashraf via Facebook)
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This media contains graphic content. Click to unblur.
Graphic image of Hammad Ayyad Mansour al-Dabbari, killed in alleged Israeli airstrikes on agricultural land east of Rafah on May 12, 2021. (Image posted by Ali Fahedi via Facebook)
Geolocation notes (1) [ collapse]
Reports of the incident mention the Zalata (زلاطة) neighbourhood, for which the generic coordinates are: 31.260063, 34.296570. Due to limited satellite imagery and information available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further.