Airstrike
The IDF had used a warplane to drop a 500-pound Mark 82 bomb on the crowded beachfront cafeteria, leaving a large crater and killing at least 41 Palestinians. [5] [2] The IDF did not issue any warnings or evacuation orders before conducting the strike. [6] According to an Israeli outlet, the target of the strike was Hasham Mansour, the son of a Hamas military commander who was killed months prior. [7]
A few days later, the IDF claimed to have killed Ramzi Ramadan Abd Ali Saleh, Nissim Muhammad Suleiman Abu Sabha, and deputy head of Hamas's mortar unit, Hisham Ayman Atiya Mansour. [8]
Victims
Among the dead was Ismail Abu Hatab, a filmmaker and photojournalist who had previously been injured in a 2023 airstrike. [9] He was the founder of ByPa, a Palestinian creative collective. Another journalist, Omar Zaino, also died in the attack, while journalist Bayan Abu Sultan was reported injured. [3] Visual artist, Frans al-Salmi, was also killed in the attack. [10]
The airstrike also killed two athletes, according to the Palestinian Olympic Committee: footballer Mustafa Abu Amireh and boxer Malak Musleh. Musleh was one of Gaza's youngest female boxers and had aspirations of representing Palestine at international tournaments. [3] [11]
Other victims included remote IT workers Nasim Sabha and Mohammed Abu Odeh, as well as several members of the Mansour family, including the son of Ayman Mansour, a Hamas commander killed in 2023. It is unclear whether these family members had ties to Hamas. The Israeli military stated that the target was Hamas operatives and claimed it had attempted to minimize civilian casualties through aerial surveillance prior to the strike. [3]
Reactions
The IDF said the situation is under review and claimed it had "struck several Hamas terrorists" and that "prior to the strike, steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians using aerial surveillance." [5]
Hamas condemned the airstrike, stating "An airstrike carried out by the criminal occupation army's aircraft targeted innocent civilians gathered at a rest stop on the Gaza City beach." [12]
Gerry Simpson of Human Rights Watch said that the IDF "hasn’t said exactly whom it was targeting" but that it had used aerial surveillance to minimize civilian casualties, meaning "it knew the cafe was teeming with customers at the time," calling it an "unlawful disproportionate or indiscriminate attack" which should be investigated as a war crime. [5]
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Israel Defense Forces 