Investigations

Investigations

A screenshot from The Times' article 'Three generations killed within days: why whole families are dying in Gaza'

Published

April 1, 2024

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Airwars data featured in detailed visual breakdown by The Sunday Times

This article was originally published in The Sunday Times after Airwars worked with their team to visualise the patterns of families killed in our archive of civilian harm in Gaza. The introduction is repeated below but the entire article is available here, and an archived version here.

 

Maisara al-Rayyes was in the prime of his life. At 30, he had just completed his medical studies at King’s College London as part of the prestigious Chevening scholarship, which brings “outstanding emerging leaders” to study in Britain, funded by the Foreign Office.

Returning to Gaza last summer to work with Doctors Without Borders, he married a fellow scholar, Laura Hayek, whom he described as “the most gorgeous and kind-hearted girl” he had ever met.

A social media post on September 12 shows him taking a selfie with James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, after al-Rayyes and other scholars were invited to discuss the challenges and aspirations of young Palestinians.

Two months later he and his entire family were killed.

The al-Rayyes family are one of at least 1,800 that the Gazan authorities say have lost multiple members. In some cases whole families are being erased, their surnames removed from the civil registry, the official government record of citizens.

In collaboration with Airwars, the British-based organisation that counts civilian casualties in conflicts around the world, The Sunday Times has collated the details of more than 150 families that have lost multiple members in the Israel-Gaza war.

These are some of their stories.

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