Al-Darajj Neighborhood Massacre

It was an assassination operation carried out by Israeli F-16 fighter jets in the midnight of July 23, 2002. The fighter planes dropped a high-explosive bomb weighing a ton, leveling a three-story building in the ground, in addition to destroying eight adjacent buildings in the densely populated neighborhood of Al-Daraj. The targeted area was considered the most densely populated in the Gaza Strip. As a result of this airstrike, Sheikh Salah Shehada, the overall leader of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, along with his wife and three of their children, were killed. Fifteen other Palestinians, including eight children, lost their lives, and more than 170 others were injured to varying degrees.