Palestinian Territory – A new report by Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reveals details of the Israeli army's targeting of a civilian family in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza Strip, in February 2024. The targeting included an aerial strike on the family home, sniper killings of family members, obstruction of medical aid, prevention of body recovery and burial, arbitrary detention of survivors, and other grave violations within the broader context of the ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023.
The report is based on an extensive field investigation into an Israeli aerial attack on the Al-Aweini family home, carried out by drones at least three times without prior warning. It also documents Israeli soldiers sniping family members near the Nasser Medical Complex, leaving them to bleed to death while preventing their rescue. Israeli forces further obstructed all attempts to recover and bury their bodies.
The investigation spanned nearly two years and relied on field research and direct interviews conducted by Euro-Med Monitor researchers. It was based primarily on testimonies from surviving family members, including parents and siblings, to reconstruct the sequence of events from the aerial attack to the arrests. These accounts were cross-checked with eyewitness and medical staff testimonies at Nasser Medical Complex, including its administration, along with a review of field conditions and medical records from the relevant period.
I constantly watched my sons through a hole in the hospital wall, praying to God that cats and dogs would not come near them. All I prayed for was that they would at least be buried
Tahani Ghazi Mustafa Hamdan, the victims' mother
Alongside gathering testimonies, the team utilised geospatial analysis tools, satellite imagery, and topographic maps to pinpoint the home's exact location and measure its distance to the hospital, which was determined to be no more than 100 metres. They also examined sightlines from nearby elevated structures to assess possible firing angles and compare these with the injury sites.
The report covers the period from the February 2024 incident through January 2026, incorporating testimonies from detained family members documented after their release.
At approximately 11:00 a.m. on Sunday, 11 February 2024, the Israeli army carried out an attack on the home of the Al-Aweini family near the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip. A drone struck the house with at least one missile without warning, critically injuring Abdullah Ibrahim Al-Aweini, 29, in the abdomen.
When his father, Ibrahim Hassan Al-Aweini, 56, went up the open-topped stairwell to check on him after the incident, he encountered a quadcopter drone filming him up close. The drone then targeted him multiple times with fragmentation munitions, causing head and back injuries from shrapnel, until he lost consciousness.
Husam Ibrahim Al-Aweini, 27, Saad Ibrahim Al-Aweini, 22, Hassan Ibrahim Al-Aweini, 33, and Anas Ibrahim Al-Aweini, 18 (16 at the time of the incident), rushed to help him and tried to take him to the nearby Nasser Medical Complex. As they headed on foot to the Complex, Israeli snipers positioned on nearby rooftops opened fire, seriously injuring Husam and Saad, who fell near the complex's outer wall with Abdullah, wounded in the earlier strike. An eyewitness reported that Husam and Saad tried to crawl after being hit, but snipers shot at them again.
While the other brothers survived, Hassan, a nurse at the Nasser Medical Complex, and Anas, the youngest, none of the family or neighbours could rescue the wounded due to snipers targeting anything that moved around the hospital. Gunfire also prevented them from helping their father, who was also injured in the house strike.
During these events, Tahani Ghazi Mustafa Hamdan, the 55-year-old mother, went out with her injured husband, Ibrahim, trying to reach the hospital. She was stunned to find her sons lying on the ground, covered in blood.
Although her surviving son Hassan pleaded with her to return home to save her life, she could not leave her sons without help. Hassan and his father returned, while Hamdan navigated indirect routes to avoid fire until she reached the gate of the Nasser Medical Complex, where a sniper shot her leg. Despite her injury, she still headed to the emergency department for help. The Israeli army's tight siege and targeting prevented medical staff from responding. They couldn't help the three brothers or recover their bodies after they succumbed to their wounds.
An eyewitness told Euro-Med Monitor that fire was again directed at the wounded as they crawled, indicating that evacuation was impossible due to intense targeting around the complex.
After receiving treatment, the mother was unable to leave the hospital. She was compelled to remain there on the recommendation of the medical staff, for fear of being targeted if she tried to leave and of suffering the same fate as her sons. She remained inside the complex for four days until, on 14 February 2024, the Israeli army forced everyone inside to evacuate southward, in preparation for storming the complex.
During that period, the bodies of the three brothers lay in the street in front of the hospital wall, unreachable for burial or approach. The grieving mother could only watch and pray daily through a wall opening, powerless. The Israeli army later entered and destroyed the area with bulldozers.
Following the Israeli army's withdrawal, a horrific scene emerged. Severe conditions and restrictions prevented the retrieval and identification of the piled bodies or their dignified burial. One of the Al-Aweini brothers was hastily buried in a mass grave in the al-Namsawi neighbourhood without his family having the opportunity to bid farewell. The father was later forced to exhume the burial site himself to verify his son's identity. The fate of the other two brothers' bodies remains unknown after the area was levelled.
The violations against the Al-Aweini family went beyond the killing of the three brothers and the failure to recover their bodies. They also involved the detention and torture of other family members in Israeli detention centres. On 13 February 2024, a day before forcing displaced people at the Nasser Medical Complex to evacuate, Israeli forces raided the family home and detained wounded father Ibrahim and his sons Hassan and Anas. Eight days later, Anas was released, while his father, Ibrahim, was released 36 days after his detention. Hassan stayed in custody until he was released in a prisoner exchange following the ceasefire on 10 October 2025.
During their detention, and according to testimonies from family members, Ibrahim, Hassan, and Anas were subjected to torture and inhuman treatment, including severe physical assaults, starvation, sleep deprivation, and solitary confinement.
According to family testimonies, the father, Ibrahim, was tortured, fracturing his leg, a clear indication of the level of violence and physical harm practised within detention facilities. Hassan spent about 20 months in Israeli prisons and military detention centres without being charged or brought to trial, an arbitrary detention that lacked the basic guarantees of a fair trial.
In addition, releasing all members of the Al-Aweini family without charges or presenting them to a judicial authority negates any reasonable suspicion that could justify their detention and confirms that the targeting of the family's home and members was not based on a legal justification or a specific military necessity.
The investigation confirms that the targeted house was purely civilian, with no military presence or legitimate objective that could justify an attack under "military necessity," as defined in Articles 51 and 52 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions (1977).
Accordingly, there is no apparent basis that would justify targeting them through killing, detention, or bombing their home without any prior warning or precautionary measures.
In light of this, Euro-Med Monitor concludes that what occurred falls within a broader pattern followed by Israeli forces when they invade, or establish control over, certain areas, in which those areas are effectively turned into "killing zones", where anyone present is treated as a presumed target and is met with killing, injury, or detention.
The investigation found that the targeting of the Al-Aweini family, within the context of the siege of Nasser Medical Complex and based on established facts, constitutes a concentrated example of the material and mental elements of genocide in Gaza. The incident reflects prohibited acts under Article II of the Genocide Convention, including the intentional killing of members of a protected group, causing serious bodily and mental harm, and deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction.
Euro-Med Monitor urges the ICC Prosecutor to consider the Al-Aweini family case as a 'leading exemplar case,' as it covers all essential elements of genocide. This includes deliberate killing, widespread aerial attacks on civilian objects like medical facilities, targeting civilians, and acts such as sieges, starvation, torture, and denial of dignified burial.
Euro-Med Monitor calls on the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, as well as the Special Rapporteur on torture, to intensify their efforts in documenting and verifying the widespread violations faced by Palestinian prisoners and detainees, especially those from the Gaza Strip, within Israeli prisons and detention centres.
Effective pressure should be applied to allow independent international forensic teams immediate access to the Gaza Strip. They need to reach all burial sites, including mass graves and emergency burial locations, to carry out thorough investigations. This includes documenting burial circumstances, exhuming remains when needed, identifying victims and causes of death as accurately as possible, and ensuring a legally valid chain of custody for evidence. These steps are crucial to protect families' rights and prevent the concealment of crimes or tampering with evidence.
The international community should enforce comprehensive and swift sanctions on Israel, including a complete ban on exporting weapons, ammunition, and surveillance technologies. This includes drones, like quadcopters and Hermes models, and precision sniper rifles, which have been proven to be systematically used in the killing of the Al-Aweini family members and other civilians in the Gaza Strip.
Targeted individual sanctions, such as asset freezes and travel bans, must be enforced against Israeli military and political leaders responsible for issuing orders and executing crimes against Palestinians. Additionally, a boycott should be implemented against commercial and technological companies involved in supplying the Israeli army with tools used in these crimes. Providing military and economic support amid such atrocities amounts to criminal complicity, which demands accountability.
All States Parties to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide must formally intervene and join the South Africa v. Israel case at the International Court of Justice. This intervention activates the obligation of states to prevent genocide and acts as a vital tool to uphold the international legal order. Broadening international intervention can significantly influence the Court's interpretation, helping to classify acts like sieges and hospital targeting as genocide, as well as counter narratives that justify these acts as "self-defence."
States Parties to the Geneva Conventions are required to fulfil their obligations by exercising universal jurisdiction in their national courts to prosecute those involved in these violations, especially individuals with dual citizenship.
Finally, Euro-Med Monitor urges the implementation of comprehensive and binding international mechanisms to secure reparations for victims of crimes in the Gaza Strip, emphasising it as an inherent and inalienable right. This encompasses the right to truth and knowledge, acknowledgement of violations, assurances of non-repetition, and victims' rights to effective remedies, including medical, psychological, and social rehabilitation. Victims are also entitled to fair compensation for material and moral damages, such as the loss of loved ones, destruction of homes and livelihoods, injuries, disabilities, and long-term psychological trauma. Special focus should be given to children, women, persons with disabilities, and survivors of torture and sexual violence.
