Gaza: When 120 Palestinians were killed by Israel, most were from one family

When the Israeli army bombed a residential complex in the northern Gaza Strip’s Jabalia refugee camp last November, it killed at least 120 Palestinians. Most of those killed, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has discovered, came from one family.

The NGO has carried out a months-long investigation into the circumstances of the massacre, which Israel committed using US-made bombs with enormous destructive power. It was part of what has been described as Israel’s genocide against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip, ongoing since 7 October last year.

The investigation was based on multiple field visits to the attack site, survivor testimonies, eyewitness accounts and satellite images. According to the findings, approximately 120 people — the majority of them from a single family — were killed in several Israeli air strikes that targeted Abu Eida Square, a residential square with buildings housing hundreds of civilians and displaced people.

The attack on 1 November 2023 was a war crime and crime against humanity committed by the Israeli army, Euro-Med Monitor insists.

Although some neighbourhood residents remained in the area after the attack, the majority of the residents were forcibly displaced due to the widespread destruction. The buildings targeted either collapsed completely or suffered significant damage.

According to witness interviews and other sources, there were over 500 residents in the area when it was targeted, and most of them belonged to the Abu Eida family. This number includes both the regular residents as well as displaced individuals who had sought refuge there.

The investigation found that at around 12:30pm on that fateful day, the Israeli air force dropped six to eight bombs on the residential square without any prior notice. The bombs targeted residential buildings that ranged in size from one to five storeys, as well as a kindergarten.

The bombs were apparently dropped quickly and unexpectedly in what is known as a “ring of fire”, a tactic that the Israeli army has used throughout the Gaza Strip since the start of its military offensive last October. This resulted in significant human and material losses, not least because the residents were unable to flee.

“Israeli aircraft struck a command and control centre for Palestinian factions in Jabalia early on 1 November 2023, based on accurate intelligence information,” claimed the Israeli army. “Members of the Hamas Movement were eliminated in the strike.” In the same statement, the army claimed to have “urged Gazans [sic] in this neighbourhood to evacuate” as part of its efforts to “mitigate damage to civilians” and that the army “continues to call on all residents of northern Gaza and Gaza City to evacuate south to a safer area.”

The Euro-Med Monitor team’s investigation, however, has shown that the Israeli army did not issue any prior warnings or alerts before attacking this densely populated area. All survivors and eyewitnesses denied having received any kind of prior warning before the bombing started. With residents’ permission, the Euro-Med Monitor team examined their phones and found no notifications or text messages or evidence of calls telling them to evacuate.

On Wednesday, 1 November 2023, the Israeli army released video footage of an air strike that it claimed eliminated a member of Hamas in the Al-Faluga area. However, an analysis of this video and a comparison with satellite images shows that, rather than Abu Eida Square, it took place at a different site in Jabalia refugee camp on 31 October. Moreover, none of the names of individuals that the Israeli army claims to have targeted came up when Euro-Med Monitor reviewed the names of the victims of the Abu Eida Square massacre, raising further questions about the veracity of the Israeli account regarding the attack.

All of the individuals spoken to by Euro-Med Monitor denied seeing any armed groups or military conflicts in the area before the bombing. They confirmed that there were families and displaced people in the area, the majority of whom belonged to the same family. Indeed, the NGO’s team found no evidence of any military targets or armed elements in the vicinity of the residential square at the time of the Israeli attack. It was clearly a densely populated, civilian residential area.

Several weapons experts and inspectors have concluded that the weapons used in the 31 October attack were Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) bombs. These bombs may have been GBU 31 (Warhead Mark 84) or GBU 56 (Warhead BLU 109/“fortification-piercing”), and they weighed approximately 2,000 pounds (about 900 kilogrammes). These bombs were part of the Israeli army’s arsenal, which was supplied by the United States, either imported from the US or produced locally under licence.

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