On October 12th 2023, at approximately 3:30 PM, an alleged Israeli airstrike hit the Kafina family house in Camp 2 of the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, killing a child named Hussain Muhammed Kafina (14), and a child named Anas Abu Zarqa (13). Additionally, Safa News, Alalam News, and Shehab Agency all reported that the strike led to civilian injuries, without providing any additional information.
The strike which reportedly occured without a prior warning hit the centre of the Nuseirat camp, an UNRWA camp that accommodates thousands of Palestinian refugees in the central Gaza strip. Abu Fayez posted a video on Facebook showing the immediate aftermath of the strike, a severely damaged four-storey residential building and several wounded people being carried away.
Emad Abu Shawiesh also posted a video of the damage inflicted from the strike to his account mentioning that this is the second time the Kafina family home has been bombed. Made In Gaza reported that the Kafina family home was a four-story residential building.
Family members and friends mourned the death of the victims in their testimonies on social networks. Muhamed Abunoor wrote on Facebook: “My cousin’s son, the martyr, God willing, Hussein Muhammad Kafina”, posting a picture of a smiling child in a suit. Anas Abu Zarqa’s uncle Abdulrahman Jaber wrote that his nephew was killed in a strike on a neighbouring house, the Kafina family house. Another neighbor @mahmoud stated that they also survived the bombing of their neighbors’ house. Altabax Saidawi posted on Facebook a picture of the young smiling Anas Abu Zarqa holding a heart in his hands.
On October 9th, 2024 the Airwars Investigations Unit, along with Sky News, published an investigation geolocating and matching airstrike footage released by the Israeli military with incidents in the Airwars archive. In total, Airwars’ team identified 17 strikes leading to civilian harm from the first month of the war, of which the Israeli military itself had published footage. This strike was among the 17. As such this incident has been reclassified as a declared Israeli strike, rather than a likely one.
It should be noted that while the text of the Israeli military’s tweet noted that among the houses struck were “those of: a “Nukhba” (commando) activist, a military activist in the Resistance Committees, and an operational house of the Hamas terror organization, where Yahya Sinwar’s brother was apparently staying,” Airwars did not find any evidence that anyone with militant affiliation was killed in this incident. As such, no militants have been recorded among those killed or injured in this incident. This will be updated should additional information become available.
Airwars was able to find both names of the children among the Palestinian Ministry of Health list of names published on October 26th.