“No trace of it remains.” Israel is annihilating families and entire generations in its war on Gaza

A shocking investigation conducted by the Associated Press revealed that the Israeli occupation army has killed at least 25 Palestinian families from 60 families, and sometimes 4 generations of the same lineage, since the start of the devastating war on the Gaza Strip on October 7.

The agency quoted the Palestinian residing in Istanbul, Youssef Salem, as saying that he spent months filling out a spreadsheet of his family’s martyrs with all their details, noting that Israel killed 173 of his relatives during its air strikes on the Gaza Strip last December, and by the spring this number had increased. To reach 270.

The AP review included casualty records issued by the Gaza Ministry of Health until last March, online death notices, family and neighborhood social media pages and spreadsheets, witness and survivor accounts, as well as casualty data from Airwars, a conflict monitoring organization. Based in London.

According to the agency’s investigation, during this war, approximately 1,900 families suffered multiple deaths, as Israel killed more than 70 people from the Al-Mughrabi family, in a single air strike in December, and more than 50 people from the Abu Al-Naga family, in raids. Scattered in October, including at least two pregnant women.

For its part, the large Dughmush clan lost at least 44 of its members in an Israeli raid on a mosque. By spring, Israel had killed more than 80 members of the Abu al-Qumsan family.

The head of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Observatory, Rami Abdo, said: “We cannot keep up with the total number of deaths,” noting that dozens of his researchers in Gaza stopped documenting family deaths in March after identifying more than 2,500 deaths. Abdo added that the Palestinians will remember entire families that have disappeared from their lives. “It is as if a small village has been erased.”

Obtaining detailed photos and documents of the families who were martyred is difficult, as entire families are buried in mass graves, in hospital courtyards, or under the rubble of the homes in which they were martyred.

The Associated Press identified sites of about 10 strikes, among the deadliest attacks, from October 7 to December 24, and found that they hit residential buildings and shelters housing families. According to the agency's investigation, there was "in no way any clear military target or direct warning to those inside," and the combined raids during this period resulted in the martyrdom of more than 500 people.