Gruesome images of a young Palestinian boy with part of his head blown off in what witnesses described as an Israeli tank strike last week have shocked even hardened observers of the war in Gaza.
Videos and photos showing a grief-stricken man holding up a boy, the flesh of his face hanging loose to reveal what appeared to be his hollowed-out cranium, began to spread on social media Wednesday.
NBC News’ crew in Gaza captured the moments when the body of the 8-year-old boy, Abdullah Samour, was carried into Nasser hospital in Khan Younis after the shelling. The violence unfolded in the area of nearby Bani Suheila on Wednesday afternoon, according to Gaza’s Civil Defense Agency and witnesses who said they survived the strike.
Ahmed Harb Ahamed Samour, the man pictured carrying the child, said he was a relative of the devastated family and identified the young boy to NBC News.
At least nine people — five children, two women and two men — were killed, the Civil Defense Agency told NBC News.
The Israel Defense Forces said it could not comment on the specific incident without exact coordinates for the strike, which NBC News was unable to determine in the devastated tent camp. But it said its troops were “operating to dismantle Hamas military capabilities” in after Hamas’ terrorist attacks on Oct. 7, when 1,200 people, including hundreds of soldiers, were killed and around 250 others were taken hostage, according to Israeli officials.
On Wednesday, the IDF said in a statement that its troops were operating in the area of Khan Younis, the center of which is less than 1.5 miles from Bani Suheila. The IDF has not said exactly where its forces were when the tent encampment was hit.
Video captured by NBC News’ crew on the ground after the incident showed frantic scenes outside Nasser hospital, with Palestinians racing to get victims into it.
Several bodies wrapped in blankets are lifted off the backs of multiple trucks and carried into the hospital, while children with serious injuries are also rushed into the hospital. A boy is pushed on a stretcher as blood pools around his head, while another can be seen with a severe wound below his chin.
Later, Abdullah is laid down on a steel table, his head, arms, torso and feet spattered with blood. Pink bulbous tissue the size of a small fist sticks out of his left side, and flies circle his body. His arms are flung up above a mangled but recognizable face.
NBC News is not sharing the images because of their graphic nature.
Five witnesses of Wednesday’s strikes told NBC News that Israeli tanks had shelled the Palestinian encampment. Some also said “missiles” fell in the area.
Ahamed Samour, the relative who carried Abdullah into Nasser hospital, said his family had been eating lunch when he saw “projectiles raining down.”
“Children, children, youngsters, and elderly, 60 and 50 years old. They were eating lunch with their children,” Samour said. He said those killed had had no ties to Hamas.
“Did Israel eradicate Hamas? No,” he said. “They eradicated our children, our fathers and our grandparents.”
He said that he and others had believed they had been in a safe zone but that “there isn’t any ‘safe zone’ so far in the entirety of Gaza.”
More than 40,000 people have been killed in Gaza in Israel’s monthslong offensive, according to local health officials, which has shattered most of the enclave’s hospitals, homes and infrastructure.
While health officials in Gaza do not distinguish between fighters and civilians, Israeli officials also estimate that thousands of noncombatants have been killed during the monthslong offensive. Meanwhile, journalists and humanitarian organizations have documented the devastating toll the war has taken on civilians.
At Nasser hospital, NBC News’ camera captured a man wailing over a young boy lying motionless in a plastic body bag. The child’s face is bloodied with one eye open. Others crowded around a row of body bags, some holding and kissing the faces of the dead.
Several other witnesses also described how they had been sitting in their tents or eating lunch when the shelling began.
“I swear, we were sitting, we had lunch, and we were sitting, and suddenly the jets are dropping projectiles,” said a woman who did not provide her name.
“They killed everyone,” she said.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
