Mass civilian casualties of Israeli bombing, shelling and rocket attacks on the Gaza Strip have occurred in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, in which Israeli bombing attacks on the Gaza Strip cause numerous civilian fatalities. The reason for such operations is purportedly to carry out targeted assassinations of militants from Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other groups seen to be a threat to Israel, whose Shin Bet data banks monitor thousands of Palestinians for targeting. Israel regards such cases as either unfortunate errors, the consequence of civilians being allegedly used to shield militants, or as acceptable collateral damage.

Massacres in 1956

Khan Yunus massacres

Two militant leaders from the Gaza Strip — Ziyad al-Nakhalah of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi of Hamas — report losing family members in the Khan Yunis massacre, that occurred during the Egyptian-Israeli war of 1956 (often referred to as the Suez Crisis). Ziyad al-Nakhalah was born on 6 April 1953 in Khan Yunis, Gaza Strip, then under Egyptian occupation.Who is Ziyad al-Nakhalah, the Islamic Jihad's Beirut-based chief?, The Jerusalem Post Nakhalah's father was killed by the Israeli army in 1956 during the Khan Yunis massacre. Al-Nakhalah trained as a teacher in Gaza City.

Rafah massacre

2002 On 22 July 2002 an Israeli F-16 dropped a one-ton bomb on the three-story apartment where Salah Shehade and his family, together with numerous other families, dwelt in the midst of the Daraj residential neighbourhood of Gaza City full of many other apartment blocks. The death toll amounted to 17 people, of whom 15 were civilians, 11 were children. In addition to Shehadeh and his bodyguard, and 15 residents killed, a further 150 were wounded by collateral damage. The then Israeli Minister for Defense, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, stated that their information was that no civilians were in the building at the time. Dan Halutz, a year later, admitted that when taking the decision, both the government and the IDF were fully aware Shehadeh's wife was with him, but went ahead with the operation nonetheless.

Reactions The then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called the bombing "one of our most successful operations". Halutz in an interview where he called on NGOs like Gush Shalom to be incriminated for treason for exposing the realities, also stated no changes would be made in the decision-making and operational procedures that led to the bombing. In protesting the operation, 27 Israeli pilots signed a letter expressing their refusal to continue to participate in bombing flights over Gaza.

2006

In a 2006 opinion essay in The Guardian, Jamila Abdallah Taha al-Shanti, a prominent female political leader in the Hamas movement, claimed that an Israeli air strike aimed at herself had instead killed her sister-in-law and over a dozen other people. International media confirmed that there had been an air strike on al-Shanti's home and that it killed Nahla Shanti and Abdel Majid Ghirbawi.

2009 Zeitoun killings

The Zeitoun Incident took place on 5 January 2009 during Operation Cast Lead, after members of the Samouni extended family had been herded out of their homes and told to relocate to another building. In a dawn raid on the 4th, a raid into one Samouni house, using grenades and live fire, killed Ateya al-Samouni and severely wounded a four-year-old child, Ahmad, who was refused medical treatment. One of the Samoiuni men was fluent in Hebrew from working as a mechanic in Israel for 35 years and introduced the gathered members of Samouni family to Givati soldiers. The men were blindfolded and led away, and eventually 100 people, mostly women and children, were corralled into a cement block warehouse for storing fruit and vegetables. The day after the latter was subject to artillery fire and missiles from either a drone or an Apache helicopter overhead, killing 21 members of Wa'el al-Samouni's family while wounding dozens of others. The initial log at the al-Shifa hospital registered 39 al-Samouni members requiring emergency treatment.

The airstrike was ordered by Colonel Ilan Malka, then commander of the Givati Brigade, who had called up the attack after interpreting drone photographs of a cache of wooden boards the family had stacked to light a fire and heat water as rocket-propelled grenades. The men had ventured out that morning through the front door to scrounge up some firewood, and an Israeli military outpost lay a mere 80 metres away, troops were positioned on rooftops and patrols were regular with frequent interactions with local residents. When Samouni men tried to pull the injured from the ruins they were turned back with slogans, such as one – "Go back into death!" - in classical Arabic. Three days later, the IDF finally permitted Palestinian rescue teams to enter the area, and recovered 13 family members, several children, still alive. On their evacuation, the IDF bulldozed the house, and, after the conclusion of hostilities, family members came across hands and legs still poking out up from the rubble.

Aftermath Malka was reprimanded later for using tank fire on heavily populated areas and was then appointed supervisor in the Israeli prison Service(Shabas), at least half of whose detainees are Palestinian. Despite investigations both by an internal command unit and a Military Police Investigation Unit, according to B'Tselem, no reason has ever been forthcoming for the shelling. In May 2012 Mag's Major Dorit Tuval stated that investigations excluded claims civilians were deliberately harmed or the victims of criminal negligence. For the period in question, they did indict a soldier for stealing a Palestinian civilian's credit card, another for using a 9-year-old boy as a human shield, and a third for the manslaughter of a Palestinian whose identity was not known.

al-Fakhura school

On 9 January 2014, at around 4 pm, Israel launched at a minimum four mortar shells which caused 35 dead at two different sites, in Jabalia, within 100 metres of each other, and an estimated 40 other casualties. One shell landing in the courtyard of the al-Deeb family home where, unable to purchase bread, the family had sat down to bake it, and killed 11 people gathered there, while the other three hit al-Fakhura street, killing another 24. Of the 11 members of the al-Deeb family, 4 were women and 4 children.

The 3 other mortar shellings struck the outside of the UNWRA school.

Aftermath Brigadier general Ilan Tal stated that the mortar crews had shot back to save their own lives.

The Goldstone Mission concluded that firing mortars into an area where 1,368 people were crowded, in a nearby UNWRA school, in order to kill a small number of militants - Israel later alleged a mortar had been fired at their forces from somewhere in that vicinity - cannot meet the terms of proportionality for warranting the military advantage gained thereby.

2014 In what it called Operation Protective Edge launched on 8 July 2014, Israel announced it would strike houses of senior Palestinian activists in Gaza and residences which were deemed operative centres. To avoid casualties, it stated a roof knocking procedure and telephone warnings would be given in advance to alert civilians inside to evacuate within 5 minutes. In the first two days, 11 such homes were attacked with this method. According to the Israeli NGO B'Tselem this tactic contravenes International Humanitarian Law, though some interpretations challenge that view.

Israeli news outlet +972 magazine criticused Israel's "100-eyes-for-an eye spiral of violence".

Kaware family home

At about 1:30 pm on 8 July 2014, the families in Ahmad Kaware's apartment block were informed of the imminent bombing of their 3-storey 7 apartment home, and were instructed to leave. One of the sons, 'Odeh Kaware,' was a member of Hamas's military wing. The family members, together with some neighbours waited outside. An hour and twenty minutes later, at 2:50 pm, a drone-launched missile was observed to have struck the building's solar heated water tank on the roof. Several family members and neighbours, after waiting some minutes, then entered the residence, and four reached the roof. Within ten minutes, at 3:00 pm., an F-16 fighter fired a missile which struck the building, causing it to collapse. In the IDF reconstruction, the pilot believed the building was empty when he fired. As the missile flew to its target, people were observed on the roof, but no technical means were available to avert the attack.

8 civilians were killed in the strike, including six children. 28 other people were injured, 10 of whom severely.

In its initial declaration the IDF stated that this and other homes bombed that day were attacked because they were the homes of militants. A later comuniqué, reportedly adjusting the justification in order to comply with international law distinctions, reframed the bombing as one aimed at operative military centres. The Israeli army through its Military Advocate General's investigation was absolved of any malfeasance, writing that there was no fault in the actions of the IDF forces involved, and that despite the fact that the attack resulted in a regrettable outcome, it does not affect its legality post facto.'

Hamad family home

At 11:40 pm on the same day, 8 July 2014, just as the family had retired to bed, the home of Hafez Hamad in Beit Hanoun was bombed without, according to B'Tselem, any prior warning. Hamad was a member of Islamic Jihad's military wing, and the bombing was a targeted assassination. Six people, one militant and five civilians, were killed in the airstrike. In addition, three children were wounded.

Fun Time Beach café bombing

At 11.30 pm on 9 July 2014, during the opening phase of Israel's attack on the Gaza Strip, 9 youths gathered at the Fun Time Beach café run by the al-Sawalli family on the beachfront at al-'Izbeh, near Khan Younis to watch a match between Argentina and the Netherlands in the 2014 FIFA World Cup knockout stage were killed when an Israeli missile destroyed the shack.

Zoroub family Around midnight on 1 August 2014, without prior warning, an Israeli airstrike struck the home of Rafat Oudeh Mohammed Zoroub in western Rafah killing 15 family members, 4 women and 11 children, A further 4 people in the building at the time were wounded.

Al-Dalu and Al-Deif families

On 19 August 2014, the Israeli air force struck a residential building, in what they claim was an attempted targeted killing of Mohammed Deif.

2018 Rouzan al-Najjar

Rouzan al-Najjar was a Palestinian nurse/paramedic who lived in Khuzaa, a village near the Gaza Strip's border with Israel. Her family lived in an apartment within eyeshot of Israeli soldiers stationed over the border. Their area had a concrete wall installed to shield local residents from Israeli fire.

She was killed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) while volunteering as a medic during the 2018 Gaza border protests. She was fatally hit by a bullet shot by an Israeli soldier as she tried to help evacuate the wounded near Israel's border fence with Gaza. The IDF first denied that she was targeted, while not ruling out that she may have been hit by indirect fire. Israeli human rights group B'Tselem said that al-Najjar was shot intentionally.

After her death, the IDF released footage in which she purportedly admitted to participating in the protests as a human shield at the request of Hamas. The video was later found to be a clip from an interview with a Lebanese television station that had been edited by the IDF to take al-Najjar's comments out of context. In the unedited video, she didn't mention Hamas and called herself a "rescuing human shield to protect and save the wounded at the front lines", with everything following "human shield" trimmed out of the Israeli clip. The IDF was widely criticized for attempting posthumous character assassination by tampering with the video.

2019 al-Madhun family