On Saturday, July 6, 2024, three humanitarian aid workers, 17-year-old Kamel Ehab Magdy Ghabayen, 27-year-old Mohamed Awad Ramadan Hegazy, and his brother, 35-year-old Ramadan Awad Ramadan Hegazy, were killed and one man, Mahmoud Sobhi Abu Taha, was injured due to an alleged Israeli drone strike near Temple Road in Kerem Abu Salem crossing in Rafah, the south of the Gaza Strip.
According to multiple sources, including a video interview published by Sada Palestine with an aid worker named Mahmoud Sobhi Abu Taha who was also injured in the strike, a group of aid workers were arrested while doing their volunteer jobs near what is known as the Gaza Airport area four days prior to this incident, totalling 15-16 arrested individuals. More sources, including this video interview, confirmed that the men were arrested and held by the Israeli military for four days before being released at Kerem Abu Salem crossing. The man in the interview mentioned different types of physical abuse, humiliation, and torture by the Israeli soldiers during those four days. According to the same sources, a strike reportedly targeted the released aid workers about 50-100 meters away from their release point. Mahmoud Abu Taha recounted that following the attack, “Some of the young men who were detained with me were martyred, and we fled.”
Mada Masr spoke with Abdul Hadi Ghabayen, the uncle of one of those killed (likely Kamel Ehab Magdy Ghabayen as they share a surname), who said that he had to venture into the area where the men were killed himself because the Red Cross denied the request from family members to retrieve their bodies, and that while he was bringing the bodies from the area to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Israeli forces targeted him with bullets and shells. Abdul Hadi Ghabayen described the bodies as he found them as “naked, with their hands tied, and the lower part of one of them missing, while they showed signs of being mauled by dogs”.
Source @ajmubasher also spoke with the father of Kamel Ehab Magdy Ghabayen who said that his son was an assistant driver and that he had been arrested with the others.
A Facebook post from Um Mohammad memorialized Kamel Ehab Magdy Ghabayen, along with an image of Kamel sitting on a chair and smiling at the camera.
Sources such as AlJazeera Live, TRT Arabi, and Alaraby TV shared photos of the three dead casualties with their wrists zip tied and signs of torture during their documented imprisonment time. The majority of sources mentioned three casualties who were instantly killed while the Palestinian Prisoners Society mentioned an additional fourth aid worker whose body was recovered the next day. A Facebook post from Nazih Khatatba who quoted one of the released detainees as saying that the attack “resulted in the martyrdom and injury of about seven individuals, and the rest of the workers fled the place.” It’s unclear how many of the seven were killed or injured based on this reporting, while other sources mentioned “several others were injured” without specifying how many.
Where sources identified who was responsible, all sources attributed the strike to the Israeli military. Additionally, most of the sources referred to the attack as a drone strike while at least one source, quoting one of the released detainees, mentioned artillery shelling.
Where possible, names have been matched with the Palestinian Ministry of Health (MoH) lists, which include national ID numbers. Since October 26, 2023, the MoH has released six lists, along with an additional list of medical professionals, which was released on September 17, 2024. Airwars is matching individuals to the first list where their name appeared. In regard to this incident, names are matched to the sixth ‘Palestinian Ministry of Health List of Fatalities in Gaza’ list, which was released on September 16, 2024.