2021 Wehda Street Airstrikes

Operation Guardian of the Walls began on May 10, 2021, after Hamas fired rockets toward Jerusalem, and continued until a ceasefire took effect on May 21.[6][7] A central component of the operation was the campaign against Hamas's underground tunnel infrastructure in Gaza, which the IDF called the "Hamas metro" and said had cost tens of millions of dollars to build.[1] In comments concerning civilian warnings during the operation, IDF spokesperson Hedi Zilberman said Israel sought to warn civilians without allowing intended targets to escape and therefore did not always issue advance warnings.[1]

One Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center account, citing the IDF spokesman, reported that more than 160 Israeli Air Force aircraft attacked more than 150 underground targets in northern Gaza on May 16, severely damaging several kilometers of Hamas's underground infrastructure.[8] Ynet described the overnight wave as the second phase of attacks on the tunnel network in central and northern Gaza, involving dozens of aircraft and approximately 100 bombs.[1] Both accounts describe the wider operation that day rather than the forces used specifically on al-Wahda Street.

In the early hours of May 16, 2021, Israeli aircraft struck al-Wahda Street in Gaza City's upscale Rimal neighborhood.[4][2] A New York Times account quoted by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies described several Israeli aircraft firing 11 missiles along a 200-yard stretch of the street at a tunnel and command center beneath it.[5] Most adjacent buildings remained standing, but the Abul Ouf Building collapsed after underground explosions unexpectedly dislodged its foundations.[5]

A later account said the strike hit a nearby section of the tunnel network rather than the homes directly; the collapse reportedly propagated through nearby tunnels and caused houses to implode, an outcome described as unintentional.[9] NGO Monitor likewise reported the IDF's position that the targets were tunnels built beneath civilian infrastructure, including medical facilities and roads, rather than the structures and roads above them.[10]

Contemporaneous reporting said rescue teams were trying to extract people trapped beneath rubble after the overnight attacks and had recovered several injured survivors.[1]

Zainab al-Qolaq was pulled from the rubble of her house after being trapped for 12 hours. She said she lost 22 members of her extended family, including her mother and three siblings.[3] In May 2022, around the first anniversary of the strikes, she exhibited nine paintings depicting the victims, rescue workers, and scenes she remembered from the destruction. The wider fighting ended when a ceasefire took effect on May 21, 2021.[3][7]

Reported death tolls varied as rescue work continued. Initial reporting cited the Gaza Hamas-run Health Ministry's figure of at least 33 Palestinians killed, including a one-year-old and a three-year-old.[11] The reported count later rose to at least 37 and then at least 42, including minors and women.[12] A Congressional Research Service report cited a contemporaneous headline stating that "42 said killed" in a May 16 Gaza City airstrike, wording that preserved the figure as a reported toll rather than an independently verified count.[13] A separate chronology also gave a toll of 42 after Israel bombed Hamas tunnels and surrounding buildings collapsed.[6] Palestinian health officials subsequently described the 42 dead as civilians, including 10 children.[3]

One analysis gave a figure of 44 killed while also noting that the title of a linked New York Times article referred to "22 Lives Lost"; it did not reconcile the difference, and the figures may have reflected different scopes.[5] Human Rights Watch's later investigation, as reported by the Jerusalem Post, also cited 44 civilians killed.[4] A later Meir Amit Center analysis identified the collapse of two buildings above a Hamas-built tunnel as a prominent example of deaths near or above terrorist infrastructure but did not give a separate toll for the al-Wahda incident.[14]

Those identified as killed included two doctors, Ahmad Abu al-Aouf and Moueen al-Aloul. Most of the dead were reported to be members of the extended al-Kolak family.[11]

The IDF maintained that the intended target was Hamas's underground tunnel network rather than the residential buildings above it.[5][10] An Israeli military spokesperson said the strike was intended to destroy underground Hamas military infrastructure beneath civilian homes; when asked whether the army knew how many civilian casualties the strike could cause, the spokesperson declined to say.[12]

The IDF acknowledged that the civilian deaths were a mistake and an unexpected consequence of striking a different target on the block. According to the account reported by the Jerusalem Post, a tunnel attacked elsewhere collapsed and unexpectedly caused the collapse of the structure where civilians were residing.[4] The IDF said the bombs hit their intended targets, and the New York Times account quoted by the Begin-Sadat Center said there was no evidence Israel directly struck or targeted the apartment buildings.[5] Israel argued that such a mistake should lead to improved procedures rather than a criminal investigation.[4] Hamas characterized the incident as "premeditated killing."[3]

The al-Wahda Street strikes occurred during fighting that began on May 10 and ended with a ceasefire on May 21, 2021.[7] The U.S. State Department's 2021 human-rights report, citing UNOCHA, recorded 261 Palestinians killed across the full conflict, including 67 children. It attributed at least 241 of those deaths to Israeli forces and the remainder to rockets falling short and other circumstances.[7] The State Department's 2021 Country Reports on Terrorism gave a different conflict-wide figure of 256 Palestinian deaths, of whom 128 were civilians, based on UN figures.[15]

A Congressional Research Service report noted that Israeli strikes against terrorist targets in Gaza largely focused on densely populated areas where they could cause collateral damage, and that the IDF claimed to have taken measures to warn civilians before strikes.[13] Across the conflict, Israeli airstrikes destroyed 1,800 homes, including five residential towers. Damage to healthcare facilities, water and sewage infrastructure, and schools further worsened the humanitarian situation.[7]

The al-Wahda Street strikes generated debate over compliance with international humanitarian law. Amnesty International's Saleh Hijazi argued that Israel should have foreseen the effects of striking beneath a densely populated neighborhood and that the attack could constitute a war crime.[5] The Begin-Sadat Center disputed this interpretation, arguing that the applicable obligation to warn civilians includes the qualification "unless circumstances do not permit."[5]

Human Rights Watch, as reported by the Jerusalem Post, said the IDF had not presented evidence of the underground tunnel threat cited to justify the strikes.[4] The IDF's account—that the deaths resulted from an unintended chain of tunnel collapses rather than a direct strike on residential buildings—was also reported by NGO Monitor and an account of the Meir Amit Center's analysis.[10][9] Hamas, by contrast, called the incident "premeditated killing."[3]

As of the Begin-Sadat Center article's publication on June 30, 2021, the cited material did not report a completed UN Human Rights Council or International Criminal Court finding specific to the al-Wahda Street strike.[5]