The likely target of last week’s IDF strike in Gaza City was a Hamas Finance Ministry employee. He and his five daughters were killed.
‘Everyone was gone – my brother and his kids, my sister and hers, my husband and our children,’ his wife said.
By Nir Hasson & Rawan Suleiman, Reposted by Haaretz, May 2, 2025
Fifteen members of a Palestinian family in Gaza were killed in an Israeli airstrike last week, leaving only a seven-year-old boy and his mother as survivors.
While the Israel Defense Forces did not issue an official statement, Palestinian sources said the apparent target was the boy’s father, Faraj Faraj, who was an employee in Hamas’ Finance Ministry.
Faraj had been detained by Israel after the IDF’s ground offensive in Gaza began, and was released in February as part of the hostage deal.
His five daughters – Zeina, Lin, Razan, Suad, and Jouri – were all killed in the strike.
The surviving boy, Ali Faraj, had been on the fifth floor in his family’s home in Gaza City when the explosion hurled him onto the roof of a neighboring building.
A widely circulated video documenting the strike shows Ali moments after the blast, covered in soot and blood, crying and waving to rescue workers. Nearby in the footage, the body of his father lies motionless, with the body of one of his sisters, dressed in a pink dress and torn in two, visible not far away.
“I was in the kitchen, making pasta for the kids and coffee for my brother,” said Ali’s mother, Nuha, who was wounded in the attack. “I fell. I said my final prayers, thinking I was going to die. Then, I pushed the rubble off me and looked around – no walls and no furniture. I called out, but no one answered. I saw Ali and signaled to him that I was there. He said, ‘Don’t be afraid.’ Everyone was gone – my brother and his children, my sister and hers, my husband and our kids.”
On Monday, another airstrike in Gaza hit several women and children. Video from the scene in central Gaza City shows several bodies scattered on the street.
Among the dead were a father and his five-year-old son, Zahdi and Talal Abdel Salam, who had set up a small roadside stall that morning. Also killed were Arabic teacher Said Shahada and medical student Mahmoud Shaheen.
A young girl whose identity remains unknown was also among the victims.
The IDF did not respond directly to Haaretz’s inquiry about the two strikes, but said in a statement: “The IDF operates in accordance with international law, targeting military objectives and combatants.
It employs various measures to minimize harm to civilians, despite the complex conditions of fighting a terrorist organization that deliberately embeds itself within civilian populations and uses them as human shields.”
Nir Hasson & Rawan Suleiman are journalists at Haaretz.
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