A Palestinian journalist in Gaza has captured international attention when she published footage of an apparent Israeli airstrike hitting a boy in a street in the northern Gaza Strip, then another strike hitting a group of men as they attempted to help him.
In the footage captured last weekend by 21-year-old journalist Wafaa Thaher on October 18, a wounded boy can be seen lying in the street waving his hands in distress, after an apparent strike caused a small scorched crater nearby, on the edge of the Jabaliya refugee camp, where the IDF has been carrying out a renewed offensive it says is aimed at preventing a Hamas resurgence in the area.
Thaher, who is herself from Jabaliya, later provided a copy of the video to The Washington Post, which in recent days verified its authenticity and added English subtitles.
She told the Post that she began filming after she heard nearby explosions amid an Israeli strike and noticed the child, later identified as 13-year-old Mohammed Salem, pleading for assistance from the ground.
“He’s a child,” she could be heard saying as she filmed. “In pieces. Why did they strike him?”
A group of around a dozen men then rounded the corner, and, grabbing their heads in disbelief as Salem collapsed backward, began running toward him while calling for additional help.
Moments later, as two men tried to lift Salem from the ground, a second strike slammed into the ground, sending the group of men flying back.
In a second video, filmed moments later and also acquired by the Post, Thaher can be heard telling her parents that she could see several people had been wounded and that Salem no longer appeared to be moving.
“It’s good that he died, because he was in pieces,” she said.
The Palestinian Red Crescent later confirmed to the Post that Salem had died of his wounds and that a second 14-year-old boy whose feet were severed by the second strike was also pronounced dead after being taken away to an ambulance. Around 20 people were injured in the second strike, it said.
Asked to comment on the incident, the IDF told the Post that it “is working to dismantle the military and administrative capabilities of Hamas,” and that it takes “precautions to reduce harm to civilians.” It did not explain, however, why it had conducted the strikes or what their target was.
Several hundred thousand Palestinian civilians are believed to still reside in Jabaliya and surrounding towns in northern Gaza, despite repeated evacuation orders from the IDF.
While many thousands have fled, some have remained, either because they are unable or unwilling to evacuate, and there have been reports that Hamas has been preventing civilians from evacuating.
Some Palestinians have also claimed that the IDF has been targeting those trying to flee — a charge that the army denies.
The IDF said in recent days that amid the renewed fighting, some 20,000 more people had left Jabaliya.
Following two weeks at the start of the month in which no humanitarian aid entered northern Gaza, the Biden administration warned Israel on October 13 that it had 30 days to take significant steps to address the humanitarian crisis or risk the continued supply of some offensive weapons. Since then, the IDF said on Tuesday that more than 230 aid trucks entered northern Gaza, bringing food, water, medical supplies and shelter equipment to the beleaguered north.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 42,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far. The toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 17,000 combatants in battle as of August and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.