The Aftermath of a Massive Wave of Israeli Airstrikes that Killed Over 100 Palestinians
“Every time we wake up in this nightmare—they surprise us with the nightmare of returning to war.”
NUSEIRAT REFUGEE CAMP, GAZA ( WEB NEWS )
Dr. Sami Jabr stood on the wreckage of the Abu Dalal family home in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza on Wednesday, just hours after it was bombed. They had been his neighbors. Piles of rubble and uprooted trees were all that was left. Clothes and mattresses and other remnants of life lay mixed in with the smashed concrete.
“I was starting to fall asleep when, Boom! A succession of bombs targeted the house of our neighbors, the Abu Dalal family—our loved ones and friends. It was a massacre. A massacre. A massacre. We went out and found no one. Only body parts and dismembered bodies. There was no one left alive…there was a child without a head. Scenes that break your heart,” Jabr told Drop Site. “We had nothing to do with any of this. What is the cause for all of this?”
The wreckage of the Abu Dalal family home in Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza hours after it was bombed. October 29, 2025. (Video by Abdel Qader Sabbah.)
At least eleven members of the Abu Dalal family, including four children, were killed in the twin bombing of their home on Tuesday evening, part of a massive wave of Israeli airstrikes and tank fire across the enclave overnight that marked the bloodiest episode in Gaza since a so-called “ceasefire” went into effect on October 10. Israel killed at least 104 Palestinians, including 46 children, in less than 12 hours of bombardment. More than 250 were wounded, including 78 children.
United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk denounced Israel’s attack saying, “Reports that over 100 Palestinians were killed overnight in a wave of Israeli air strikes—mainly on residential buildings, IDP tents and schools across the Gaza Strip following the death of an Israeli soldier—are appalling. He added, “It is distressing that these killings occurred just as the long-suffering population of Gaza started to feel there was hope that the unrelenting barrage of violence may be at an end.”
Before daybreak in Nuseirat, people used flashlights to dig through the debris—some of it still smoldering—to pull the dead and wounded out and carry them in blankets to ambulances waiting nearby. Jabr, a doctor who usually works at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, was unable to go on shift despite the casualties pouring in. “I could barely walk or do anything. Yesterday…I barely survived,” he said.
“Every time we wake up in this nightmare—they surprise us with the nightmare of returning to war.”
Mourning and funerals in Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza on October 29, 2025. (Video by Abdel Qader Sabbah.)
The killings came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday he had ordered the military to conduct “powerful strikes” on Gaza following an exchange of gunfire in Rafah. The Israeli military later said an Israeli soldier, who held U.S. citizenship, was killed in an attack. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement, “Anyone who raises a hand against [Israeli] soldiers, his hand will be severed.”
Hamas immediately denied involvement in the Israeli soldier’s death, saying it “has no connection to the shooting incident in Rafah and reaffirms its commitment to the ceasefire agreement.” According to a report in the Israeli news outlet Walla, the Israeli military believed that the Palestinian militants who clashed with their troops in Rafah were likely an isolated and disconnected cell that had been besieged for a long time. The report also said the Israeli military was unable to determine whether the attack was approved by the Hamas leadership. The report echoed a similar one last week when two Israeli soldiers were killed in Rafah, an incident for which Hamas also denied responsibility. At the time, Israel’s Channel 7 cited a classified discussion in the Knesset’s Security and Foreign Affairs Committee where Israeli military officials found that “the terrorists were cut off from communication with the world and did not know that there was a ceasefire and therefore carried out the attack in which two IDF soldiers were killed
Also on Tuesday, Israel announced that the remains of a captive handed over from Gaza by Hamas to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) did not match one of the 13 remaining dead captives as part of the ceasefire agreement. Israel said forensic analysts later determined the body parts belonged to an Israeli captive whose partial remains were recovered by Israeli troops in November 2023. Israel also accused Hamas of “staging” the recovery and released footage purporting to show Hamas fighters burying a body before calling in the ICRC.
Based on the Israeli footage, the ICRC said its personnel “were not aware that a deceased person had been placed there prior to their arrival.” “Our team only observed what appeared to be the recovery of remains without prior knowledge of the circumstances leading up to it,” the statement added.
Israel has violated the ceasefire agreement every day since it went into effect—shooting and killing Palestinians, restricting humanitarian supplies, and refusing to open the Rafah border crossing. And little international attention has been given to the estimated 10,000 bodies of dead Palestinians that are missing under the rubble across Gaza and whose recovery without proper machinery has been arduous.
In response to Netanyahu ordering “powerful strikes” on Gaza, the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, said it would delay handing over the remains of another Israeli captive which had been scheduled for Tuesday night. “The world must understand that the blood of our children and women is not cheap, and that the resistance—with all its factions that committed to the agreement with responsible will and remains committed to it—will not allow the enemy to impose new realities under fire,” Hamas said in a statement. “Hamas also calls on the mediators and guarantors to assume their full responsibilities regarding this aggressive breakdown, and to exert immediate pressure on the occupation government to stop its massacres and commit fully to the terms of the agreement.”
Israel notified the U.S. before launching the strikes on Tuesday, according to the Associated Press. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, President Donald Trump defended the Israeli assault, saying, “As I understand it, they took out an Israeli soldier. So the Israelis hit back and they should hit back. When that happens, they should hit back.” He added, “Nothing is going to jeopardize” the ceasefire and that “If they (Hamas) are good, they are going to be happy and if they are not good, they are going to be terminated—their lives will be terminated.” Vice President JD Vance said the ceasefire “is holding,” characterizing the Israeli attacks that killed dozens of children as “little skirmishes here and there.”
By noon on Wednesday, the Israeli military said it had “returned to the agreement after it was violated by the terrorist Hamas” but reserved the right to “respond forcefully to every violation.” Several hours later, Israel announced it had bombed a neighborhood in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza, in a strike that killed at least one Palestinian, according to Al Jazeera.
In Nuseirat on Wednesday morning, the Al-Awda Hospital was packed with mourners after the hospital received at least 30 bodies alone. Mass funerals were held with hundreds in the streets holding funeral prayers for the Abu Dalal family and others, their bodies wrapped in white body bags and piled onto trucks. Outside the hospital complex two men sat weeping over the corpse of a young female relative that had been wrapped in a bloodied sheet and laid on the floor.
“We have no strength left,” Jabr said. “It’s not just words. I swear to God, we are exhausted.”