In the evening of October 10th, 2023, up to eight civilian members of the Shaheen family, including two women, a 17-year old child and 10-year old child, were killed in an alleged Israeli airstrike on their family home in the Tal al-Zaatar area of the Jabalia camp in the north of the Gaza strip. A ninth member of the family, a militant, was also killed. The three-storey family house was completely destroyed, and at least three more people were reported wounded. Sources said that the attack happened without a prior warning.
The number of people reported killed in the airstrike rose over time with Shihab Agency at first simply reporting that there was “a martyr and a number of injuries”. This was quickly followed by an update stating that the number of people killed had “risen to 6” and that there were still “missing people under the rubble”. Shaab Radio confirmed that specialised teams had been working to recover bodies of people killed in the attack.
Later that evening, the Palestinian Information Center reported that “the number of martyrs has risen to eight as a result of the bombing of the Shaheen family home in Tal Al-Zaatar”. DCIP reported that according to Palestinian civil defense teams, two bodies were recovered from the building and an estimated 10 Palestinians were inside during the bombing” and that everyone inside was killed, including at least one child.
A photographer affiliated with the Associated Press (AP) captured an image of the body of Shani Louk, a German-Israeli victim of the October 7, 2023 attack on the Nova Music festival, being carried away in the bed of a white pickup truck. Shani’s body is pictured alongside five men. Analysis conducted by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and published on May 1, 2026, identified one of the men in the image, seen carrying a weapon, as 30-year-old Mustafa Shaheen. Airwars had originally recorded Mustafa as a civilian. However, following the analysis shared by FDD, Airwars updated his status from civilian to militant and removed his death from the number of civilian fatalities recorded in this incident.
The following day, different family members and neighbours posted online the names of nine people killed. Amongst those killed were the father of the family Sami Shaheen Abu Youssef (53 years old), his wife Fayza Al-Mabhouh Umm Youssef and their four sons: Youssef Shaheen (33 years old), Mustafa Shaheen (30 years old), Ismail Shaheen (28 years old), and Muhammad Shaheen. Among the victims were also their two daughters Hadeel Shaheen (23 years old) and Lama Shaheen (17 years old) who were also killed, as well as Sami and Fayza’s nephew, 10-year old Mohammad Baraa Tayseer Shaheen. Abeer Sami, a son of Sami Shaheen Abu Youssef, posted a statement on Facebook stating that “all members of my family were martyred”.
The North Gaza Governorate Police Command remembered their colleague, the late Sami Shaheen Abu Youssef, in its Facebook post also released a statement on the airstrike stating that: “Major Sami Shaheen ascended this evening, October 10th, 2023. As a result of brutal bombing by [Israeli] aircraft, his house was [destroyed] with a number of his family members”.
The death of a 10-year old Mohammad Baraa Tayseer Shaheen was mourned in a Facebook testimony by Ibrahim Abo Hamouda, who wrote: “Peace be upon your pure soul, Mohammad Baraa Shaheen.”
Accfares Khater, a neighbour of the Shaheen family, further stated that, in addition to the nine family members killed, there were “a number of other injuries” while @UnewsAgency1 reported that three people were wounded in the bombing. Multiple sources, such as Accfares Khater and Mahmoud Shahin on Facebook, said that there was no prior warning before the strike.
Where possible, names have been matched with the Palestinian Ministry of Health list of fatalities in Gaza released on October 26th, 2023.
Where sources identified the belligerent, all sources attributed the strikes to Israeli forces.