During the night between 16 and 17 April 2025, an alleged Israeli SkyStriker drone, commonly known as a suicide drone, hit the tent of the Asaliyeh family in the Jabalia Refugee Camp/Jabalia al-Balad, the north of the Gaza strip, killing six of the family members and injuring at least 13 others, including two children. A seventh member of the family was killed and has been identified as a militant.
The strike was reported by a number of prominent media outlets including Alarabiya Palestine and Al Jazeera Palestine.
The adult victims were later identified as Ghassan Raed Salem Asaliyeh (32, a militant), also known as “Abu Al-Raed”, and his wife, Khadija Wafi Salem Asaliyeh (28). The remaining five victims were their children, including three daughters Jamalat Ghassan Raed Asaliyeh (13), Rahaf Ghassan Raed Asaliyeh (12), and Israa Ghassan Raed Asaliyeh (8), and two sons Raed Ghassan Raed Asaliyeh (7) and Wafi Ghassan Raed Asaliyeh (one and a half years old). The casualties, including victims’ identities, were corroborated in the posts shared online by Ghassan Asaliyeh’s cousins and journalist abd.sabbah referred to the family as tragically being erased from the civil registry.
When Airwars first published this incident, no open sources were found to suggest that Ghassan Raed Salem Asaliyeh was a militant. As such, Ghassan Raed Salem Asaliyeh was recorded as a civilian. This was in line with Airwars’ methodology which is employed across all conflicts we document, and informed by international standards regarding the ‘presumption of civilian status’. Specifically, as outlined by the International Committee of the Red Cross, civilian status is assumed until evidence is identified to the contrary.
On August 5, 2026, a Telegram account affiliated with Palestinian Islamic Jiahd (PIJ)’s armed wing published a tribute to Ghassan Raed Salem Asaliyeh, identifying him as a fighter. As such, Airwars updated Ghassan Raed Salem Asaliyeh’s status from civilian to militant and changed the minimum number of civilians reportedly killed in this incident from seven to six.
According to the initial reports by the Palestinian Information Center and the Palestine Dialogue Network on X, five of the Asaliyeh family members were killed immediately as a result of the strike while 13 other individuals were wounded. The same sources later reported that seven of the family members were killed, stating that others were wounded but without specifying the number while Orabi Kalloub reported that seven were wounded in addition to the seven killed. According to a resident interviewed by Quds News, only two children were left alive including one in critical condition at the hospital.
The aftermath and casualties were documented with numerous videos and pictures shared online by journalists, media outlets, organisations, and social media users. On the night of the attack, a graphic video recorded by a journalist, Anas Al-Sharif, was circulated on X. The video was recorded at night, with bodies of the victims seen inside of the destroyed tent, likely shortly after the incident. The censored version of the video was shared by Al Jazeera Palestine. As seen in the footage published by the Palestinian Information Center, the Palestine Dialogue Network, and Alarabiya Palestine, the Palestinian Red Crescent Sociery attended the scene and collected the bodies of the victims. Another video shared by the journalist Abdal-Qader Sabbah on Instagram showed the rubble of the tent during the daytime after the bodies were removed. The transfer of two injured girl children into a hospital was also documented and shared by social media users on the day of the incident, although it is unclear if they were victims of the same attack.
Meanwhile, other social media users shared pictures of the family from before the attack, honouring their memory. Tariq [Asaliyeh], a cousin of Ghassan, posted an image of him smiling warmly with four smiling children, likely his children who were among those killed. Abedallaha Ali [Asaliyeh] also memorialized his cousin Ghassan, who he described as “a polite, well-mannered young man, and one of the best young men in this family”. Family members Marwan [Asaliyeh] and Al Aml B Allaha posted additional images of the children, in all pictures smiling and posing in different locations.
Where possible, names have been matched with the Palestinian Ministry of Health (MoH) lists, which include national ID numbers. Airwars is matching individuals to the first list where their name appeared. In regard to this incident, names are matched to the ninth ‘Palestinian Ministry of Health List of Fatalities in Gaza’ list.
Where sources identified the belligerent, all sources attributed the attack to the Israeli military.