Salah al-Din Street: Israeli Airstrikes on Convoy of Displaced People

The Gaza Strip has been subject to horrific attacks by the Israeli occupation forces since early October 2023, resulting in massive human losses, unprecedented destruction of infrastructure, and the eradication of entire populated residential areas. 

Even convoys of displaced people were not spared in these attacks, as one such convoy was subjected to multiple attacks along Salah al-Din Street near the Kuwait Roundabout on the afternoon of Friday, October 13, 2023, during its passengers' evacuation towards the south of the Strip under Israeli military orders. At least three of these attacks directly hit cars carrying displaced people along the road. Shrapnel also hit a truck with two trailers carrying displaced people. The attacks killed 70 people and injured more than 200 others. The Israeli military, through its official spokesperson, presented a misleading narrative in an attempt to shift responsibility for the attack away from Israel, and used a video clip of another incident at a different location and time to deny responsibility for the attack.

The video presented by the Israeli military spokesperson shows an explosion filmed on Wadi Gaza Bridge, about 4 kilometres away from the site of the Salah al-Din Street attack. By analyzing shadows in the clip, it appears the video was taken at 14:59 local time in Gaza City, while the series of Salah al-Din Street attacks took place between 15:15 and 17:20, meaning the latter started 16 minutes later than the Wadi Gaza attack.

By examining the data we have about the two attacks, it can be confirmed that the Wadi Gaza Bridge incident is completely different from the multiple attacks that targeted a convoy of displaced people on Salah al-Din Street near the Kuwait Roundabout. The widespread use of the video out of context by media outlets and fact-checking platforms led to misinterpretations about the nature of the two incidents. As a result, the Israeli military spokesperson used these analyses to deny Israel’s responsibility for the attack.

The NAWA Media Open-Source Investigations Team monitored and analyzed open-source content of the attacks on the convoy on October 13. We also analyzed the events and contexts of relevant visual materials to put together this investigation, which aims to uncover the circumstances of the attack and to try to determine the party responsible for it.

Evacuation Order

On the morning of October 13, 2023, the Israeli military published a warning to residents of northern Gaza on X (formerly Twitter). In the social media post, the military was calling for the evacuation of all civilians from their homes in Gaza City southwards for "their own safety and protection," and had ordered the civilians to move to the area south of Wadi Gaza.

The Israeli military’s official spokesperson, Avichai Adraee, also shared an update to the evacuation announcement on his Facebook page the same evening of October 13, 2023, adding: “We appealed to you in the morning to leave Gaza City to the area south of the Gaza Valley, for your safety. I would like to inform you that the IDF will refrain from touching the route marked on the map until 20:00.” This was the only announcement online that provided information about the designated displacement route.

At 19:00 on the same day, the Palestinian government media office published an official announcement about the Israeli military’s bombing of several cars carrying displaced people towards southern Gaza. A video published by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza showed an ambulance driver, whom it described as “a witness to a real massacre,” collapsing and kneeling to the ground as he arrived at the hospital, speaking into the camera and saying, “Advise people to go to their homes, they bombed the displaced people who are in trucks,” explaining that displaced people in trucks were bombed. He went on to say, “They told the people to relocate and then bombed them.” Someone next to him added that trucks and ambulances were also bombed.

Geographical Location: Where Did the Attack Take Place?

By analyzing and matching the visual content of videos published by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza; journalist Ragıp Soylu; Local Focus, and other videos online, it was possible to determine the coordinates of some of the strikes that were clear and documented. An attack on a group of cars behind the two trailers next to Aslim Petrol Station on Salah al-Din Street by the Kuwait Roundabout in Gaza City took place specifically at coordinates 31.483005, 34.444769.

Another attack took place minutes later and a few meters away from the first. It hit a car in front of Daghmush Company for Trading and Tire Repair stores, next to the ambulance crews after they arrived to the location of coordinates 31.483354, 34.445045. It cannot be confirmed whether these were the only two attacks, as the number of attacks may be much higher.

When Did the Attack Happen?

After The Joker posted that a bomb targeted a car on Salah al-Din Street, various websites and accounts published videos of the attack. Based on shadow movement calculated using SunCalc, and the timeline of damage by successive strikes at the site of the attack shown in the videos, we were able to arrange the events and create a possible timeline.

We cannot confirm the time estimates that we arrived at through shadow analysis, as the images of the shadows were taken from imprecise locations and analysis the provided different results. However, we can conclude that the likely time of the multiple attacks on the convoy of displaced people on Salah al-Din Street near Kuwait Roundabout was between 15:15 and 17:20 Gaza City time. One of these attacks included three strikes only seconds apart.

Impact of the Attack

Considering the timeline and videos of the attack, we hypothesize that the shelling was not precisely targeted1 and instead proceeded indiscriminately along the impacted Salah al-Din Street, as most attacks were within a distance of about 700 square meters.

The bombing burned and destroyed six passenger cars. Several other cars parked nearby were damaged, in addition to the ambulance that was damaged by shrapnel from the projectile that fell next to it. The bodies of seven civilians can be seen scattered along the street. Seventy people were killed and more than 200 wounded in the attack, according to Al Jazeera citing the Palestinian Ministry of Health. The Ministry did not publish their names.

Probable Ammunition

The video published by journalist Al-Zanoon on his Instagram account, taken a day after the incident, shows burned cars. At 0:09”, ammunition remnants can be seen on the ground, relatively similar to the rear propellers of mortar shells. They are small in size and may belong to 81 mm or 82 mm mortar shells.

Upon researching the use of these kinds of shells by both the Israeli military and armed Palestinian resistance factions, we found that the Israeli military is using shells known as the M43 Mortar Bomb, i.e. an 81 mm M43 mortar. The shape of the rear propeller left behind in the video of the attack site matches the rear propeller of mortar shells used by the Israeli army.

When this type of shell falls, fragmentation or fragment dispersion typically occurs at a 360-degree angle, the impact of which can be seen in videos of the bombed cars, as well as the dispersion of fragments on the ambulance wall.

Our analysis circles back to the reason why the trailer of the truck carrying displaced people was impacted from the eastern side; it appeared to have bloodstains and some corpses on it, despite not being directly hit. This may be the result of shrapnel from a projectile that fell at a close range, unnoticed. The fragments of 81 mm mortar shells can typically reach as far as 20 meters.

Facebook user Mohammed Sirhan wrote that he was at the site of the attack during the strike. He was taking a family from Gaza to the south in his taxi when several successive artillery shells targeted the cars and the displaced people passing through Salah al-Din Street. He added that he survived and ran away, leaving everything behind.

Mohammed’s account supports the possibility that the attack involved ground-to-surface bombing and not aerial bombardment. Additionally, in an interview with Sky News, the official spokesperson for the Israeli army denied that there were airstrikes on the area.

It is possible to determine the projectiles’ likely direction of arrival based on the size of the impact crater and the direction and locations of the projectiles’ fall: From the direction of the settlements northeast of Gaza City. The team searched for recent satellite images to determine the locations of the Israeli army in the northeastern settlements, but no helpful photos were found because they were encrypted on satellite imaging websites and included paid services at the time of writing the investigation.

It should be noted that this information is not an analysis produced by weapons experts, and therefore cannot be accepted as a final conclusion, and does not represent a claim by the authors of the investigation. It is merely an analysis of the data available so far.

While it is possible that the ammunition remnants may belong to any of the military forces within the possible range for firing this type of shell, this cannot be confirmed. The ammunition remnants are merely additional evidence that can be used in open-source investigations, and other explanations for their presence at the attack site must be considered.