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On the night of Jan. 7 this year, three 250-pound bombs smashed into an apartment block in the Al Tuffah neighbourhood of northern Gaza. Footage of the aftermath shows walls collapsed, rubble piled up and blackened household items scattered across the scene.

Although a ceasefire has been in effect since October, and a Board of Peace led by US President Donald Trump has been announced to begin phase two of that process, Israel has continued to conduct strikes within Gaza

The IDF claimed they targeted a senior Hamas operative in response to a violation of the ceasefire agreement in the Jan. 7 attack. 

Two people were reported to have been killed.

While the strike was an Israeli operation, among the debris were munition remnants of at least three US-made GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs, including one that failed to explode.

American-made munitions like these have played a significant role in Israel’s operations in Gaza. 

The US has provided billions of dollars worth of military aid to Israel over the years, and has enacted legislation providing at least US$16.3 billion in direct military aid since the most recent war began. In the first few months of the Trump Administration nearly $12 billion in major weapon sales to Israel were approved with deliveries scheduled to take years to complete.

However, human rights groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have said that US-made weapons have been used in Gaza in ways that have likely violated international law. Multiple international media reports have also identified individual instances of civilian harm likely caused by US weaponry deployed by Israel in Gaza.

A 2024 State Department report, completed during the administration of former President Joe Biden, even stated that due to Israel’s “significant reliance on US-made defence articles it is reasonable to assess” that they have been used in “instances inconsistent with its IHL [International Humanitarian Law] obligations or with established best practices for mitigating civilian harm” — although Israel says it operates within international law and seeks to mitigate civilian harm while aiming to dismantle Hamas’ military capabilities. 

Yet the full extent of civilian harm in Gaza caused by the use of US-produced weapons remains unclear. 

Foreign media are not allowed into Gaza and the documentation of events there has relied heavily on social media footage and the work of local journalists, many of whom have been killed in Israeli air or ground strikes while carrying out their work.

Collating Incidents

Bellingcat has collated scores of incidents like the Jan. 7 strike in Al Tuffah where US-produced munitions have been found in the aftermath of Israeli strikes.

This analysis utilises publicly available media footage and identifies at least 79 specific cases, many of which caused death and damage to civilian infrastructure such as schools, homes and healthcare infrastructure.

While revealing, it is important to note that the data comes with some significant caveats and limitations that must be acknowledged before exploring it.

Gaza has been pummelled since the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, when more than 1,200 Israelis were killed and hundreds more kidnapped. 

In response, Israel is reported to have deployed 30,000 munitions into Gaza in the first seven weeks of the conflict alone. The Israeli Airforce has also bombed over 100 different targets in Gaza in a single day multiple times.

This dataset – which details cases where US-made munition remnants have been found and evidence of their use published in media or posted to social media – therefore only captures a small fraction of the overall incidents over more than two years of war.

Furthermore, Israel and the US both produce some of the same munitions, such as the MK-80 series of bombs. The US supply of this series, especially the 2,000-pound MK-84 of which over 14,000 have reportedly been delivered since Oct. 7 2023, have been central to calls for the suspension of US arms transfers to Israel due to their destructive potential. 

But because Israel also makes these bombs domestically the country of origin cannot be definitively identified without specific remnants that show either the lot number, indicating the manufacturer, or other identifying information.

As a result a decision was made to try and track the use of three specific munitions that are made solely in the US and which Israel does not domestically produce. This, again, significantly reduced the number of incidents analysed. 

These munitions were Hellfire missiles, GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs and Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) bomb guidance kits. While this analysis does not track MK-80 series bombs, the JDAM kit is one of several guidance kits that can attach to bombs like the MK-84 but which is only produced by the US. 

The full dataset can be found here. The munition identifications were reviewed by Frederic Gras, an independent Explosive Remnants of War (ERW) Expert and Consultant.

Despite all of the above caveats and limitations, the analysis recorded 79 geolocated incidents where remnants of these three models of US-made munitions were either found in the aftermath of a strike or were captured in visual imagery in the moments before impact.

Beyond the 79 cases analysed and included in the dataset, other US-made munitions were identified in a further 26 cases, although it was not possible to geolocate the remnants or strikes prior to publication. It may be possible to geolocate the outstanding incidents in time. Bellingcat is, therefore, including these incidents in the dataset but notes further work is required for them. 

Many of the geolocations in the dataset were initially posted publicly by independent geolocators, or volunteers from the GeoConfirmed community, including Anno Nemo, Abu Location, fdov, Chris Osieck, Zvi Adler and Will Cobb. These geolocations were independently checked and verified by Bellingcat.

For the 79 incidents it was possible to geolocate, Bellingcat sought to compile reports of civilian harm. Yet given the lack of access afforded to international observers it was not possible to independently verify each of these reports of casualties or fatalities.

The reports, many of which cite health authorities in Gaza, detailed that at least 744 people were killed in these 79 strikes, including at least 78 women and 175 children. When reports offered a range for the number killed, or number of women and children killed, Bellingcat used the lower end of the estimate. 

Israel rarely provides estimates for civilian casualties from their strikes. It has also claimed that the Gaza Ministry of Health has exaggerated death tolls after specific strikes. Analysing previous public reporting of each incident in the dataset, Bellingcat found that the IDF had claimed at least 69 people that were reported killed in these attacks were militants belonging to Hamas or other factions. In one strike, where at least 33 people were reported killed, the IDF claimed to have targeted “dozens” of Hamas members, releasing the names of 17 people they said were part of Hamas. 

Bellingcat asked the IDF if they could provide a total for the number of people killed in the attacks listed in the dataset or for any specific strikes but they did not provide a figure. A spokesperson for the IDF provided information for eight strikes within the dataset that it said sought to hit “terrorist targets”. Bellingcat has noted this response beside each incident in the dataset.

The spokesperson added that Israel “strikes military targets and objectives in accordance with international law and takes all feasible measures to mitigate harm to civilians and civilian structures as much as possible.”

The Gaza Ministry of Health has reported that over 70,000 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict. While Israel has long disputed those casualty figures, Israeli media recently cited anonymous Israeli Defence Force (IDF) sources who said they believed them to be largely accurate. Israel has claimed to have killed about 25,000 militants in Gaza. 

Attacks on Schools

Attacks on schools, mosques, shelters and residences are all included in the dataset. In total, 28 strikes on schools using US made munitions were identified. GBU-39 bomb remnants were found at the site of 20 of these strikes. Most of these took place before the ceasefire of January 2025.

For example, the Khadija school in Deir Al Balah was targeted in three rounds of airstrikes on July 27, 2024 that used both GBU-39 bombs and MK-80 series bombs equipped with JDAM kits. Satellite imagery before and after the strike showed significant damage to the facility.

Video from the ground provided more detail, showing that the first round of airstrikes targeted five different areas of the school complex.

The unexploded bomb body of a GBU-39 was found inside the school, while the fuzewell from a GBU-39 bomb that exploded was photographed near the destroyed gate structure.

An evacuation notice was then reportedly issued, and two buildings on the eastern side of the complex were targeted with larger bombs, leveling the buildings there. An additional evacuation notice was reportedly issued before a third strike. 

A video of the third strike shows at least six people, including a child, visible within approximately 55 meters of where a bomb equipped with a US-made JDAM kit hit one of the already collapsed buildings on the eastern side of the complex.

These three strikes killed at least 30 people, including 15 children and eight women, according to reports collated by Airwars. At least 100 were injured, according to the same reports. Most people were reportedly harmed in the initial strikes, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The United Nations reported at the end of February 2025 that 403 of 564 school buildings in Gaza had been “directly hit” in some manner, either by airstrikes or by other munitions. School buildings are often used as shelters. However, Israel has claimed in some instances that they were being used as Hamas command centres.

After the war resumed in March 2025, recorded strikes on schools generally appeared to use Israeli-made munitions. Only two strikes on schools since then were found to have used US made munitions – a May 2025 attack on the Fahmy Al Jarjawi school with at least three US-made GBU-39 bombs that killed 36 people, according to hospitals in Gaza, and a July 2025 strike on Cairo Basic School where five people were reported killed and where remnants of a Hellfire missile was found.

While the dataset shows no other attacks on schools using US munitions after this period, it is important to note that there may have been other instances where US-made munitions were used in such circumstances but which were not recorded.

Strikes on Healthcare Facilities

Two strikes using US-made munitions to directly target medical facilities were identified in this analysis. A Hellfire missile was used in a June 2024 strike on a health clinic in Gaza City that killed Hani al-Jafarawi, the director of ambulance and emergency services in Gaza. However, the IDF claimed the strike had killed “the terrorist Muhammad Salah, who was responsible for projects and development in Hamas’ Weapons Manufacturing Headquarters”.

The Gaza Civil Defence Headquarters in Al Daraj, Gaza City, was also targeted with a US-made GBU-39 bomb in September 2024. The bomb penetrated multiple floors but failed to explode, causing injuries but no deaths.

Five instances of US-made munitions being used for strikes near medical facilities were also identified. Four of these strikes used Hellfire missiles to target tents within approximately 150 meters of the Al Aqsa Martyr’s Hospital Main Complex in Deir Al Balah.

The fifth strike used a US JDAM likely attached to a MK-82 500-pound bomb to target the Al Aqsa Mosque across the street from the hospital, approximately 50 meters away from the main hospital complex. This strike killed 26 people, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. 

A US Marine Corps manual on Close Air Support states that a MK-82 bomb delivered within 425 meters is considered “danger close”, with a bomb delivered within 250 meters being 100 times more dangerous than the minimum “danger close” standard.

Evacuation Strike Notices

Twenty-six strikes were identified where US munitions were used to target buildings including homes, schools and mosques after an evacuation notice was issued by the IDF. In 23 of these strikes there was no reported harm. However, there was significant harm recorded in others even with evacuation notices. 

Evacuation notices are notifications that provide advance warning of strikes and can be made on social media or sent to people’s phones. These notices often provide journalists on the ground time to set up cameras to record the incoming strikes. Such videos are occasionally of high enough quality to identify the bomb guidance kit attached as JDAMs kit as they fall, as can be seen in the video below.

لحظة قصف مسجد الألباني في مدينة خانيونس بصاروخين من طيران الحربي .
The moment the Al-Albani Mosque in Khan Younis
was bombed with two missiles by warplanes.

: Abdallah Alattar / Anadoluimages
1 أغسطس 2025 pic.twitter.com/U3Tad0veA6

— عبدالله العطار abdallah alattar (@abdallahatar) August 1, 2025

By Sept. 17, 2025 Israel said it had destroyed 25 high-rise buildings in preparation for their assault on Gaza City. Bellingcat was able to identify that at least seven high-rise buildings in Gaza City, including Al Soussi Tower, Al Roya Tower, and Al Roya 2 Tower, were issued evacuation notices then destroyed using MK-80 series bombs with JDAM kits.

The Aybaki Mosque, built in the 13th century, was also hit with MK-80 series bombs with JDAM kit, which the IDF told Bellingcat was a strike targeting the “deputy commander of heavy machine guns unit in Hamas, Khaled Nabil Saleh Shabat”. The IDF has claimed that these tall buildings host Hamas infrastructure, including observation posts and prepared attack positions.

The public warnings posted by the IDF for buildings targeted in Gaza City in September 2025 alerted residents of specific blocks, as well as those in the target building and adjacent tents to leave and head south towards the IDF declared humanitarian zone.

Prior to strikes in Lebanon where the IDF issued evacuation notices, maps were publicly posted requesting civilians evacuate at least 500 meters away. However, a review of public posts by the IDF for evacuation notices in Gaza from September 2025 found no notices that provide a specific evacuation distance.

Bellingcat asked the IDF if the content of evacuation notices sent to people’s phones differ in content from those publicly posted and why evacuation notices in Gaza appeared to not provide a recommended evacuation distance like those issued by the IDF in Lebanon. The IDF told Bellingcat that they issue “clear and detailed advance warnings through multiple channels, including communications published by the IDF Arabic Spokesperson and enables the civilian population to evacuate before strike.”

The distance people are told to evacuate prior to strikes is important as fragments from bombs, or the buildings being targeted, can still kill or injure people hundreds of meters away.

In one strike where an evacuation notice was given before the strike, a four-year-old girl, Razan Hamdiye, was reported killed. One person was also reported killed in the strike on the AlRoya tower.

After the airstrike targeting the Harmony Tower, a graphic video captured by the Anadolu Agency showed a group of people about 120 meters away had been either killed or injured by the strike, despite the evacuation notice.

US-made munitions have also been used in other IDF strikes, including one which reportedly killed the leader of Hamas’ Military Wing, Mohammed Deif. At least 90 people were reported killed in this attack and US-made JDAM remnants recovered. US munitions were also used in the September 2025 strike that reportedly killed Hamas Spokesman, “Abu Obayda” and at least six other people, where remnants of US-made GBU-39 bombs were found.

American-made munitions were also used alongside other unidentified munitions in the June 2024 IDF hostage rescue operation in Nuseirat, where 274 people were reportedly killed. These 274 deaths are not included in the 744 people reported killed in the incidents contained within the dataset due to the inability to identify the other weapons used in at least 13 strikes that occurred during the operation.

Bellingcat reached out to the IDF, the US Department of State, and the US Department of Defense before publishing this story. Bellingcat also asked the primary contractors for these munitions, Boeing and Lockheed Martin, about whether they track how their products are used in Gaza.

Boeing, which manufactures the GBU-39 bomb and JDAM bomb guidance kit did not respond. Neither did Lockheed Martin, which makes the AGM-114 “Hellfire” missile.

The Department of Defense declined to comment.

A spokesperson for the US Department of State said “The US Government is not able to make such determinations” when asked how many civilian deaths could be attributed to the use of US-made weapons in Gaza. 

Bellingcat asked if the State Department held a different assessment than the NSM-20 which was introduced under President Biden and determined that it was reasonable to assess that US-made weapons were used by Israel in instances “inconsistent with its IHL obligations or with established best practices for mitigating civilian harm”. The spokesperson said “NSM-20 is no longer US policy.”

The State Department referred other questions about the use of the munitions highlighted in this article to the Israeli Defence Forces, who told Bellingcat that they do not detail the munitions they employ and that Hamas exploits “civilian infrastructure for terrorist purposes”.

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Jake Godin and Carlos Gonzales contributed to this report.

Afton Briones, a member of Bellingcat’s Volunteer Community, contributed research to this piece.

Bellingcat is a non-profit and the ability to carry out our work is dependent on the kind support of individual donors. If you would like to support our work, you can do so here. You can also subscribe to our Patreon channel here. Subscribe to our Newsletter and follow us on Bluesky here and Mastodon here.

The post Made in the USA: How American-Built Weapons Have Wrought Destruction in Gaza appeared first on bellingcat.

On March 23, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced an operation in southern Gaza’s Tal as-Sultan neighborhood and urged civilians to evacuate using a road north to a humanitarian zone. Hours before the statement was shared online, a rescue convoy was traveling along that same road before all contact was lost. The convoy was made up of aid workers from the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), Palestine Civil Defense and the United Nations. 

At least four vehicles, clearly marked by their emergency flashing lights, were present and had stopped beside another vehicle that was located just off the road when the shooting started.

An almost seven-minute video, recovered from a phone on one of the bodies of the deceased and released by the PRCS recorded what happened next. Although much of the footage is dark, the audio provides some clues about events that unfolded. An extended 20-minute version of the original seven-minute video has since been released by the PRCS on April 8. 

Bellingcat conducted a preliminary analysis of the recording and broke down the audio. We then consulted two audio forensic experts who confirmed the total shots fired numbered in the hundreds. 

The majority of gunshots heard during the shooting appear to feature supersonic shockwaves, which seems to indicate bullets travelled toward the recording microphone held by the aid worker. The audio evidence also appears to confirm that the first shots were aimed at the medics’ convoy from a distance of approximately 40 to 45 metres. 

Following the incident, IDF spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani initially denied the PRCS ambulances were randomly fired upon and claimed the vehicles were “advancing suspiciously toward IDF troops without headlights or emergency signals.” Following this, troops opened fire on the vehicles. 

However, after the emergence of the seven-minute video recorded by one of the PRCS members — first reported by The New York Times and then released by the PRCS — which showed the vehicles had their emergency lights and headlights on, the IDF released another statement on April 7. This outlined that, following a preliminary inquiry into the incident, the Chief of the General Staff had instructed that a more in-depth investigation would be carried out by the General Staff investigation mechanism. This process is typically enacted by the IDF to determine whether a criminal investigation should be opened into an incident. 

A video shared by the United Nations on March 30 showed bodies clad in emergency vests as they were retrieved from a shallow grave. The remains of emergency vehicles were also retrieved.  

Geolocating the Seven-Minute Video 

We were able to confirm where the footage was filmed using two large concrete structures silhouetted on the horizon to the left of the road (highlighted below in red). There are also newer temporary structures visible on the right hand side of the road (highlighted in blue). We matched these identifiers from the video with more recent SkySat imagery from Planet Labs, finding they lined up with an area on Gush Katif Road just north of Tal as-Sultan.

Using the chronolocation tool SunCalc, Bellingcat was also able to confirm the video was filmed in the early hours of the morning — something also confirmed by The New York Times. The video shows sunlight on the horizon to the east, and computing the sunlight for March 23 at 5:00am local time for this location shows that the sun would be in around the same position. 

Breaking Down the Audio

Bellingcat has previously used audio forensic analysis to investigate the killing of journalists Shireen Abu Akleh and Abelardo Liz and has compared the sound of live rounds against witness testimonies and official statements.

Most rifle ammunition available today is faster than the speed of sound (supersonic). The muzzle velocities of bullets fired by such rifles are typically in the range of 650 to 1,000 metres per second (m/s).

When supersonic rounds are fired, the first thing heard by a person — or camera —  in the line of fire is the shockwave (crack sound) caused by the passing bullet, followed by the respective muzzle blast (bang sound) which travels much slower at the speed of sound. There is a time gap or delay between both since the bullet travels faster than the bang. Watch our video from a previous investigation for a more detailed explanation.

We noted that the first minute of the seven-minute video recording released by the PRCS shows the vehicles driving along the road and no gunfire can be heard. 

The shooting recorded in the video begins at approximately 1:17, with a series of rapid gunshots featuring what appears to be shockwaves (cracks).

How Many Shots were Fired?

We counted approximately 150 of these crack sounds during the first 30 seconds of the shooting. However, this estimate likely includes not only primary gunshot shockwaves but also some echoes and reflections, which are difficult to differentiate as the highly overlapped series evolved.

Audio forensic experts Dr Robert Maher, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the State University of Montana, and Steven Beck of Beck Audio Forensics told Bellingcat there were likely hundreds of gunshots fired during the approximately five minute incident. 

Dr Maher told us that 27 of these gunshots appeared to occur in the first three seconds of the shooting alone.

The Shooters 

The majority of gunshots heard during the shooting appear to feature supersonic shockwaves. Dr Maher explains that the audible gunshots have the “crack-bang” characteristic, indicating bullets were traveling generally toward the recording microphone, which on this occasion was held by the aid worker.

Bellingcat noticed there were different time gaps between crack sounds and the respective muzzle blasts in the audio. We shared instances of these gunshots with the experts to calculate the distance to the shooters during those moments.

Dr Maher measured the crack-muzzle blast timing of the first gunshots to be about 76 or 77 milliseconds and that the firearm appears to have been about 45 metres from the microphone. Steven Beck estimated the distance to be 40 metres. According to Beck there appeared to be at least three shooters at the start of the shooting. Both experts assumed a bullet speed of 800-1000 m/s respectively for their calculations.  

These distances are consistent with one eyewitness, who, according to The New York Times, was being held nearby by the IDF at the time. He was quoted as saying that Israeli soldiers opened heavy fire on the aid workers from a distance of approximately 50 metres. 

In a later sequence at minute 4:10 in the seven-minute footage, there is a five-shot sequence with various apparent shock waves and muzzle blasts. Both audio forensic experts found the timing between these sounds to be about 50 milliseconds, suggesting a distance of 30 metres.

In other instances towards the end of the video, the timing between the cracks and the muzzle blasts appears to be narrower (42 and 20 milliseconds), meaning these weapons were likely closer to the aid workers’ convoy.

Dr Maher indicated that given the vast number of gunshots, it seems there were likely multiple shooters involved over a range of distances. 

Without any visual evidence, it is not clear if the shooters were getting closer to the aid convoy as they fired. It’s also not possible to rule out an exchange of gunfire due to the high number of shots and overlapping sounds. However, details from the audio indicate that on at least two occasions the shooting heard was initiated by gunmen who were firing in the direction of the convoy as opposed to firing from the convoy.

Shooting Patterns and Weapons Used

The shooting, heard in the recording, lasted approximately five minutes and included several intervals of heavy and intermittent fire as well as some pauses. 

After the initial intense burst of gunfire, there is a pause lasting about 15 seconds. You can hear this at 1:43 in the recording. At approximately 1:58 the shooting resumed. Again, the gunshots appear to feature crack sounds, and at least one ricochet, which seems to indicate that bullets were likely shot in the direction of the aid workers’ convoy.

Between 2:35 and 2:57 there appear to be 14 gunshots from a firearm, also featuring very consistent ballistic shockwaves, which, according to Beck, all are from about the same distance of approximately 40 metres from the convoy.  

Right after this, at 3:01, a more rapid burst of gunfire is heard.  Both experts estimated this to be consistent with a machine gun firing at 600 rounds per minute (22 shots in 2 seconds) and featuring supersonic shockwaves. We identified another potential automatic gun resuming fire towards the convoy after a pause at 4:05.

Our analysis shows that even after brief pauses in the shooting, it resumed several times over the course of approximately five minutes. It is not clear from the available data why the shooting continued for such a sustained period and seems to have included the use of machine guns. 

IDF Response

Bellingcat asked the IDF if there was any evidence that anyone in the convoy was armed or returned fire during the incident and whether they believed their response in this case was proportional to the threat posed.

In response, the IDF told Bellingcat the incident is still under examination. On Monday, April 7, the IDF released a statement saying that following a preliminary inquiry into the incident the Chief of the General Staff has instructed that a more in-depth investigation would be carried out by the General Staff investigation mechanism.

This process is typically enacted by the IDF to determine whether a criminal investigation should be opened into the incident. 

The IDF’s statement on Monday outlined that the “preliminary inquiry indicated that the troops opened fire due to a perceived threat following a previous encounter in the area.” Adding that six of the people killed were identified as Hamas members. Though the IDF did not provide evidence to support this. 

“All the claims raised regarding the incident will be examined through the mechanism and presented in a detailed and thorough manner for a decision on how to handle the event,” they said.

The claim that any of the workers were militants has been denied by a survivor of an earlier attack PRCS paramedic Munther Abed, who said the entire crew was civilian. 

The Palestine Red Crescent has called for an independent investigation into the incident.

Protection of Medics Under International Law

Though only a preliminary analysis of the audio from one recording at the scene, this evidence indicates that a huge number of shots were fired towards the aid workers, who were clearly marked. Audio experts also suggested there were multiple shooters involved.

We presented the available evidence to Morris Tidball-Binz, UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions who told us: 

“The arbitrary killing of health workers amounts to a grave violation of international human rights law (i.e. the absolute and inderogabile prohibition of arbitrary killings); a grave breach of International Humanitarian Law and of international criminal law; and it amounts to the war crime of willful killing and of intentional attack against protected medical personnel and transport carrying an emblem of the Geneva Convention.”

He told us the incident must be thoroughly investigated, and a failure to do so may constitute a violation of the right to life under international law.

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Bellingcat is a non-profit and the ability to carry out our work is dependent on the kind support of individual donors. If you would like to support our work, you can do so here. You can also subscribe to our Patreon channel here. Subscribe to our Newsletter and follow us on Bluesky here and Mastodon here.

The post What Audio Analysis Reveals About Aid Workers Killed in Gaza appeared first on bellingcat.

Scroll Down to view interactive photogrammetry produced for this story; you can expand both models to view them in full screen mode and explore them for yourself. You can view a video version of this story, here.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), at least 165 Palestinian journalists have been killed since the Israel-Hamas war began in October 2023. In fact, according to CPJ, last year was the deadliest year for journalists worldwide since they began documenting deaths in 1992.

Gathering aerial footage of Gaza is a dangerous task, and Bellingcat along with our partners at Forbidden Stories, Le Monde, Die Zeit, Der Standard, Paper Trail Media, Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ) and RFI identified several cases where drone journalists were killed or injured shortly after capturing aerial images. 

The Gaza Project is a collaborative investigation coordinated by Forbidden Stories, involving more than 40 journalists representing 12 media outlets (Forbidden Stories, Paper Trail Media, RFI, Bellingcat, Die Zeit, Le Monde, France 24, ARIJ, The Seventh Eye/Shakuf +972 Magazine, ZDF and Der Standard) who continued the work of Gazan journalists and investigated about the threats and difficulties they are facing.

Israel said early on in the war it could not guarantee safety of journalists in Gaza. Hamas has also been known to use drones to target Israel Defense Forces (IDF) positions and has used drone footage in propaganda videos. The investigative consortium contacted the IDF about the cases mentioned in this story, how they determined the drones posed a threat, the IDF rules of engagement with drones and how they define someone as a terrorist. The IDF did not answer specific questions about individual cases, nor did they provide further details about the two individuals in this piece, but they did tell us the IDF rejects outright the allegation of systemic attack on journalists.

“The IDF cannot address operational directives and regulations as they are classified. However, every operational action or strike is mandated by IDF directives, which instruct commanders to apply the basic rules of the law of armed conflict,” they said.

The full cost of the war still needs to be assessed through on the ground visits, when a permanent ceasefire is agreed, but in the meantime, satellite imagery combined with drone footage and other imagery captured by journalists in Gaza has been critical to lay bare the level of destruction. 

For instance, a brief drone video lasting just over one minute and published in January this year by the AFP news agency after the first phase of the recent ceasefire was implemented, shows the rubble of scores of hollowed-out homes in Rafah. Some are completely levelled, others severely damaged. 

The most recent interim damage assessment compiled by the World Bank, European Union and United Nations estimates almost 300,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed across Gaza and that 95% of hospitals are non-functional.

In order to continue the reporting on the extent of damage caused by the war in Gaza, Bellingcat and our partners are sharing satellite imagery and using a 3D model technique called photogrammetry to capture and show the areas the journalists had been filming or were unable to report on.

Abdallah Al-Hajj: Documenting Al-Shati Refugee Camp

On February 15, 2024, about six months into the conflict, the United Nations shared a short video on social media showing dozens of hollowed out or partially collapsed buildings located in Gaza City’s Al-Shati Refugee Camp. The video starts with a birds-eye view filmed by a drone that shows entire blocks levelled in the compact neighbourhood. 

Over the course of more than 12 months of conflict, Al-Shati Refugee Camp saw heavy destruction.

The neighbourhood and its surroundings were an early target for IDF ground operations inside Gaza, with the IDF announcing in mid-November 2023 that it had completely captured the area. The IDF said it was a main Hamas stronghold. One video geolocated by a Geoconfirmed volunteer shows the heavily damaged coastal side of the Al-Shati Refugee Camp a year later. The camp also abuts an archeological site to the north that was potentially damaged by the ground operation and airstrikes, as previously documented by Bellingcat and Forensic Architecture. 

The images shared by UNRWA were filmed using a drone by Palestinian journalist Abdallah Al-Hajj. Nine days after they were posted online, he was back filming in the same area when he was seriously injured in an Israeli army strike, losing both his legs.

Previous photos taken by Al-Hajj had been shared by UNRWA earlier that month and almost 300 of his photos were included on UNRWA’s film and photo archive, with some aerial photos taken by Al-Hajj as early as 2020. He had previously worked as a photojournalist for the Jerusalem-based, Palestinian newspaper Al Quds as well as other media.

Speaking to our partners Forbidden Stories, Al-Hajj said he felt a journalistic responsibility to continue filming in Gaza during the war but took several precautions including only filming when clashes were over and when there was no immediate conflict in the vicinity. On the day he was injured, he said he’d only filmed with the drone for about five minutes and completed the filming when he was hit. He told our partners at Forbidden Stories he wasn’t wearing his press vest because he felt identifying himself as a journalist put him at greater risk.

The IDF previously told Le Monde that it had “eliminated by an IAF aircraft” a “terrorist cell using a drone, posing an imminent threat to forces in the Shati area.” Apparently the same strike was referenced in this reporting from February 25.

It’s not clear where the threatened forces referred to in the IDF statement were. It was reported that the IDF conducted a two-week-long raid in Al-Shati Refugee Camp in early February but it was apparently finished by February 15.

Based on SkySat imagery from Planet Labs, IDF vehicles were visible earlier in the month on February 8 about 2.5km from Al-Shati Refugee Camp near Gaza City’s Islamic University campus. The vehicles were gone a week later in February 14 imagery.

Photos and videos show that the IDF were present about 3.5km south of Al-Shati Refugee Camp along the Al-Rashid Road throughout the month of February, though it’s not clear if they were still present at the location when Al-Hajj was filming.

After the strike, SkySat imagery from Planet Labs shows that Al-Hajj’s home south of Gaza City in the Zeitoun neighbourhood was destroyed. It was standing in February 24 imagery but in February 28 imagery showed that it was gone.

We asked the IDF about Al-Hajj’s case including asking them to explain the immediate threat that was posed by the drone, why he was hit and what information they had about him but they did not respond to specific questions about this case.

Al-Hajj told our partners Forbidden Stories the accusation that he was part of a terrorist cell or affiliated with Hamas was a “false and unfounded charge.”

Additionally he said he was checked by IDF troops twice after the incident, in Al-Shifa Hospital where he was admitted and again when he left the Gaza Strip via a Netzarim checkpoint to travel to Qatar for medical treatment. “If I were Hamas, I would not have gone out of the Gaza Strip for treatment,” he said.

To continue documenting the changes in Al-Shati Refugee Camp brought about by the war, Bellingcat used drone images provided by Forbidden Stories to create a 3D model of the current state of the area through photogrammetry, a technique that reconstructs objects in 3D by analysing the parallax between multiple photos.

Forbidden Stories also provided drone images of Jabalia, previously one of the most inaccessible areas in Gaza for journalists, which Bellingcat used to create an additional 3D model. 

Photogrammetry

Photogrammetry is the science of extracting measurements from photographs. In this case, photogrammetry is employed to extract large scale, measured 3D models from a dataset of aerial photographs of Gaza captured by a drone.

Bellingcat processed the 3D models of Jabalia Refugee Camp and Al-Shati Refugee Camp using Agisoft Metashape, which requires a paid license. Alternative open-source programs for photogrammetry include Meshroom and COLMAP.

The 3D models were created from the drone photos in four steps, though different steps may be applicable to different scenarios. First, corresponding features are detected and matched between images. Then, using the corresponding features, camera positions are triangulated using the camera parameters (ie. focal length, pixel size, lens distortion) and repeatedly adjusted to increase the accuracy of the reconstructed camera positions through bundle block adjustment. Next, depth maps are created for each image using dense stereo matching, which compares images from similar viewpoints to find the small differences between them caused by parallax. These depth maps are used to create a 3D mesh that serves as an accurate recreation of Gaza. Finally, a texture is created by projecting the original drone photos onto the mesh in a way that seamlessly blends them, giving the final result of a photorealistic and dimensionally accurate 3D model.

Photogrammetry and the 3D models do have some shortcomings – in particular, areas not visible to the camera cannot be accurately reconstructed, such as the insides of heavily damaged buildings that are hidden by overhanging floor slabs. Further, the varying distance between the camera and the features it captures leads to variances in the level of detail in the model, as does the varying number of photographs of any given feature – for example the narrow alleys in Al-Shati Refugee Camp can only be seen from certain angles in the photogrammetry, meaning they aren’t as accurately depicted as more visible areas such as the courtyards of UNRWA schools in Jabalia Refugee Camp.

While satellite images can be difficult to interpret and are limited in resolution, the 3D models produced with photogrammetry allow viewers to place themselves in the environment. This approach provides an unparalleled look at the landscape of Gaza after nearly eighteen months of war, including buildings reduced to rubble, craters left behind by intense bombing, and thousands of tents sheltering displaced persons. A similar technique has been used in other open source investigations, notably in the recreation of the Mariupol Drama Theatre in Ukraine which was used as a civilian shelter until it was bombed by Russian forces in 2022, as well as numerous investigations by Forensic Architecture.

Within the models presented on this page, we have identified key sites including schools, homes and areas damaged by fighting.

Mustapha Thuraya: Documenting Al-Nasr Village/Moraj

About a month before Al-Hajj was injured in Al-Shati Refugee Camp, Mustapha Thuraya and his colleague Hamza Al-Dahdouh were killed in an IDF strike while they were driving in southern Gaza on their way back from reporting in Al-Nasr Village. Thuraya was a freelance video journalist who had filmed for Al Jazeera, AFP, Reuters, and Getty Images among others. He was killed on January 7, 2024 in Al-Nasr Village northeast of Rafah, shortly after filming with his drone.

According to reporting by the Washington Post, Thuraya and Al-Dahdouh arrived at the location about 10:30am, when an airstrike forced them to leave the area by car. They were following an ambulance when they were struck while on the road at approximately 11:10am.

Thuraya began actively covering the war not long after it started, sharing dozens of videos on his social media pages. In many of the videos, his drone controls are visible in his hands as he filmed himself in front of scenes of destruction. In some of the videos he can be seen wearing a press vest, though it is unclear if he was wearing it on the day he was hit.

The final thing Thuraya filmed with his drone was the site of an IDF airstrike in southern Gaza that took place the same day. The area he was filming is a rural part of southern Gaza that sits between Khan Yunis to the north and Rafah to the south. Overall, the area was relatively untouched by Israeli ground operations, though satellite imagery shows that the IDF cleared a small area of greenhouses within 1km of the airstrike location in late July and August 2024. Recent Planet Labs imagery from January 2025 shows that most of the larger area is still intact, including the majority of the greenhouses. 

Before and after satellite imagery from Planet Labs shows the location where Mustafa Thuraya and his colleagues were filming shortly before they left in their vehicle and were killed while on the road south. The most recent imagery shows that some greenhouses have been destroyed but otherwise the area is largely unchanged. Credit: Planet Labs PBC.

The IDF initially claimed the January 7 strike on Thuraya and Al-Dahdouh’s car was in response to drone activity that posed a threat to IDF troops. They later released further reasoning for the strike, stating that Israel’s military intelligence department had confirmed that Dahdouh was a member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Thuraya was a member of Hamas,  — something rejected by both Al Jazeera, which they were working for at the time — and the journalists’ families.

The Washington Post, quoting Thuraya’s friend and fellow journalist Shadi al-Tabatiby, said Thuraya had previously worked for around five years as a photographer for the Ministry of Religious Endowments, part of Gaza’s Hamas-led government. It’s not clear when his employment ended.

Our analysis found the closest potential IDF activity to where the strike on Thuraya’s vehicle took place — clearing activity that was visible near a cluster of buildings — was more than 5km away, something that’s visible in Planet SkySat imagery from the day of the strike. An analysis from The Washington Post came to a similar conclusion regarding the IDF presence near where Thuraya was filming, even though they analysed a smaller area, finding no evidence of IDF military activity or deployments within 2km of the site.

The Washington Post was also able to review the drone footage filmed by Thuraya and found that no IDF “soldiers, aircraft or other military equipment” was visible in the footage.

The IDF did not respond to the consortium’s specific questions about Thuraya and the circumstances surrounding his killing. 

While the area in southern Gaza that Thuraya was filming before he was killed has remained mostly unchanged, Rafah — where he and Al-Dahdouh were returning to following the filming — has been decimated. 

Drone imagery is still dangerous to capture in the south, even during the ceasefire. AFP published drone footage shortly after the first phase of the ceasefire was agreed, but it only covered a small area in Rafah. High resolution satellite imagery remains one of our best ways to observe the mass destruction in Rafah. Bellingcat covered this in August last year, but since then more buildings have been destroyed with entire neighborhoods that were previously standing demolished, particularly near the border areas. 

Hundreds of buildings in both the central Rafah area near the large marketplace and the Al-Ganinam neighbourhood have been demolished. The few remaining buildings in the Tal as-Sultan neighbourhood we examined in the August investigation have also been razed to the ground. 

Bellingcat is sharing the same satellite imagery analyzed in last year’s piece alongside more recent Planet imagery captured after the ceasefire on January 30 2025.

Credit: Planet Labs PBC.

Other Drone Journalists Slain and Photogrammetry of Jabalia

Prior to the ceasefire the Committee to Protect Journalists identified at least three other drone journalists who were killed in IDF strikes, but we have not been able to find further open source details on circumstances around their deaths. 

One area that was difficult to film prior to the recent ceasefire because it was too dangerous was the Jabalia Refugee Camp and its surrounding area. This was one of the worst affected areas of Gaza, which Bellingcat documented earlier this year. 

Bellingcat was able to create a photogrammetry model of one of the worst hit areas in Jabalia Refugee Camp using drone footage provided by Forbidden Stories which was captured during the recent ceasefire.

Ongoing Risks to Palestinian Journalists in Gaza

On Saturday, March 15, two IDF air strikes in the northern Gaza city of Beit Lahia killed at least seven people, including Mahmoud Samir Isleem Al-Basos also known as Mahmoud Al-Basos, a drone journalist who previously provided work to Reuters and the Turkish news agency Anadolu

Among the dead were aid workers and cameramen on a mission for the London-based Al-Khair Foundation who said they were filming preparations of a Ramadan iftar meal and documenting site preparation for the extension of the camp.

“We were deeply saddened to learn that journalist Mahmoud Al-Basos, whose work Reuters published in the past few weeks, was killed in Gaza by an Israeli strike while on a mission for the Al-Khair Foundation. Our thoughts are with his family at this difficult time,” a Reuters spokesperson told us.

Mahmoud Samir Isleem Al-Basos was previously hired by Forbidden Stories to film drone footage for this project during the recent ceasefire. This initiative aimed to continue the work of drone journalists who had been killed while documenting the war and help readers visualise the unprecedented scale of destruction through detailed 3D aerial maps.

The IDF stated the March 15 strikes targeted “terrorists,” including two operating a drone, and released a list of names and photos. The IDF statement contained misidentifications and names of individuals the media office in Gaza said had not been killed, causing confusion.

Mahmoud Samir Isleem Al-Basos was neither named nor pictured in the list published by the IDF. Instead, the IDF listed another individual, with a similar name, describing him as a “Hamas terrorist operating under journalistic cover,” and said there was a link between the drone used in Beit Lahia and Islamic Jihad. 

However, the consortium’s investigations indicate the individual named by the IDF has no direct link to Mahmoud Samir Isleem Al-Basos, and was not killed in the strike.

Al-Khair Foundation said, meanwhile, they “utterly refute” any claims that their team were connected to militants. They say that the members were deliberately targeted while on a “purely humanitarian mission.”

We geolocated the two strikes in Beit Lahia, and according to our findings, the first was approximately 2km from the Israeli border and an IDF outpost situated nearby and the second approximately 3km away, raising questions about the threat described by the IDF.

Asked twice by the consortium to provide evidence to support the different accusations, the IDF refused, stating it “will not elaborate on the published statements”.

The Committee to Protect Journalists have added Mahmoud Samir Isleem Al-Basos to their list of slain journalists. 

Different Takes on Drones and IDF Response

Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Maurice Hirsch, who served for 19 years in the Israeli army’s legal corps, told our partners at Paper Trail Media there is an inherent risk in flying a drone during a conflict in proximity to fighting forces. 

He said if a soldier spotted a drone in a combat zone near fighting forces, “I certainly wouldn’t assume any wrongdoing if that drone and its operators were targeted (…) it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume they were part of an enemy force.”

Our partners at Forbidden Stories also spoke to IDF reservist Michael Ofer-Ziv who served during the recent conflict, including for the first two months of the war in the Israeli military centre of Sde Teiman where he spent his time observing black-and-white footage filmed from Gaza. His role was to verify that the IDF wasn’t firing on its own soldiers. Ofer-Ziv completed his tour in December and has refused to return to service, signing a letter stating that he is no longer willing to participate in the war. 

“At no point during this war did I receive an official document outlining the rules of engagement. And that’s a problem, because it leaves a lot of room for interpretation,” he said. 

He didn’t know of the Gazan drone journalists we investigated but said there was an “understanding and a general vibe in the war room” that “if you see anyone piloting a drone, and that drone is not ours, you shoot the drone and the person who uses it, no questions asked.”

Asked about journalists using drones he told Forbidden Stories: “We never spoke of it.” 

We contacted the IDF as part of the investigative consortium and asked whether they had a specific policy for dealing with drones in Gaza, and if so how they distinguished civilians from military targets. We asked about the individual cases listed above but were not provided any further details. The IDF has previously claimed that Thuraya was a member of Hamas, a claim which Al Jazeera and his family deny, and stated they hit a “terrorist cell” target in the IDF strike that injured Al-Hajj. Al-Hajj says this a “false and unfounded” charge. 

The IDF did not answer specific questions about individual cases, nor did they provide further details or evidence about the incidents outlined above, but they told us the IDF rejects outright the allegation of systemic attack on journalists. 

“The IDF cannot address operational directives and regulations as they are classified. However, every operational action or strike is mandated by IDF directives, which instruct commanders to apply the basic rules of the law of armed conflict (LOAC).”

They reiterated that the IDF is committed to principles of distinction, proportionality and precautions and that the IDF only strikes members of organised armed groups and individuals directly participating in hostilities. They told us some of the people listed by Forbidden Stories were members of Hamas’ military wing and were therefore lawful targets under international law, but they did not provide evidence to support this.

They also told us that “the IDF takes all feasible measures to mitigate harm to civilians, including journalists. Regarding objects, the IDF only strikes military objects. The IDF does not deliberately strike civilian objects, including those affiliated with media outlets or belonging to journalists, provided that they are not legitimate military targets.” 

In their reply, they stated “the incidents have been referred to relevant mechanisms for further investigation.” But did not confirm whether the specific cases highlighted here are being investigated, and did not specify which incidents they were referring to. They also stated that exceptional incidents are subject to lessons-learned processes and are thoroughly examined and addressed accordingly by the appropriate enforcement mechanisms, and may lead the relevant cases to command, disciplinary, or criminal measures. 

Press Freedom Experts

The Committee to Protect Journalists told us that drone use for journalism is still a relatively new trend.

“We encourage journalists generally to do their own risk assessments depending on their own situation on a case by case basis,” Doja Daoud, CPJ’s Levant Program Coordinator, told us.

She made clear that:  “A journalist shouldn’t be killed and should be protected under international law.”

Daoud said CPJ had documented cases where drone journalists were killed. And in at least one case, a journalist had told them his drone had been disabled or controlled remotely.

“So there are other ways to deal with a drone,  even in conflict areas or in a proximity of Israeli soldiers, without killing a journalist.”

As for IDF claims about journalists being combatants, Daoud said in many cases, including that of Mustapha Thuraya, CPJ is still yet to see any clear proof. 

“Israel has repeatedly made similar unproven claims without producing any credible evidence. And to date CPJ has documented multiple cases with no evidence at all that any journalist was engaged in militant activity.”

“Attempts to smear, delegitimise, and criminalise journalists who are doing their job are outrageous and irresponsible as they put journalists at further risk. And targeting journalists with disinformation endangers them more.”

Irene Khan, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Opinion told us that with no western reporters allowed in, local Palestinian journalists, “are putting their lives on the line so that we may be better informed on what is happening and so that the atrocities being performed there can be exposed.” 

Using drones to show what’s happening has only increased that risk, with Khan adding that since using commercial drones as a tool is still relatively new — for both journalists and combatants — and the rules are less clear.

“International humanitarian law does not say that you are not allowed to use drones, because it is a civilian object and there are many civilian objects that can be converted and used for military purposes. But it is not wrong as a civilian to use it.”

But, Khan says, the onus is on the combatants — the IDF and armed groups in Gaza — to ensure civilians are not being targeted if it’s difficult to distinguish the purpose of a drone. From a legal point of view, international humanitarian law heavily favours journalists. 

“So the onus is actually on the combatants to make sure that if we cannot distinguish, then we need to do more to ascertain whether we might, by mistake, kill a civilian, we might kill a journalist.”

“And in all those areas, I think the standards that the IDF seem to be applying are lower than what I would call due diligence. I think there has been a tendency on the side of the IDF to assume that some of these journalists have links with Hamas and therefore are legitimate targets.”

With such a high journalist death toll throughout the war, Khan says there needs to be more done to protect journalists in the future — including carrying out independent investigations. 

“I come back to the issue of impunity. It has to be addressed. So every time a journalist is killed, there should be a full investigation as to what happened and to make sure that if there was a mistake made, what are they doing correcting those mistakes? … And I don’t understand if the IDF is so sure that they didn’t make a mistake, why are they not allowing others to come in and investigate it?”

In one of the cases where the IDF completed an investigation into one of its strikes on civilians, they said its strikes on a World Central Kitchen aid convoy last year was the result of aid workers being misidentified as gunmen. A major and colonel were dismissed and a brigade commander was formally reprimanded.

Some Palestinian journalists are continuing to film with mobile phones, cameras and drones, despite the risks.

With the recent ceasefire collapse, the risk to journalists operating on the ground is likely to increase again, heavily restricting our view of the impact of the conflict on Palestinian communities in the Gaza strip.

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Youssr Youssef, Magdalena Hervada, Charlotte Maher and Logan Williams contributed to this report.

Photogrammetry models in this piece were created using Agisoft Metashape and Cesium. Source Credit: Forbidden Stories/Stringer. Photogrammetry model: Bellingcat/ Thomas Bordeaux.

Bellingcat would like to thank our partners at Forbidden Stories, Die Zeit, Der Standard, Le Monde, RFI, ARIJ and Paper Trail Media for collaborating on this project.

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