The Israel-Gaza war is wiping out entire Palestinian families, a branch at a time. This is how
- Entire bloodlines, sometimes four generations from the same Palestinian family, have perished in single Israeli air strikes
Israel’s air and ground campaign in Gaza has killed hundreds of family members from the same bloodline, an unprecedented toll on the small community mostly made up of refugees and their descendants.
An Associated Press investigation analysed 10 strikes across the Gaza Strip between October and December that killed over 500 people.
Nearly every Palestinian family has suffered grievous, multiple losses. But many have been decimated, particularly in the first months of the war.
AP geolocated and analysed the strikes; consulted with weapons investigators; open data-analysts and legal experts; and drew on data by Airwars, a London-based conflict monitor.
They hit residential buildings and shelters with families inside. In no case was there an obvious military target or direct warning to those inside. In one case the family said they had raised a white flag on their building in a combat zone.
This war has proven even deadlier than the displacement from Israel in 1948, said Rashid Khalidi, a Palestinian-American historian at Columbia University, when 20,000 were killed in what is known as the Nakbah, or Catastrophe.
“I don’t think anything like this has happened in modern Palestinian history,” said Khalidi.