Strike on civilian convoy fleeing Gaza: What we know from verified video
15 October, 2023
Reports first emerged on Friday evening of a strike on a convoy of vehicles heading towards southern Gaza. These vehicles were carrying civilians, who were fleeing northern Gaza after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) issued an evacuation order.
Videos showing the carnage at the scene emerged shortly afterwards.
BBC Verify has confirmed the strike occurred on Salah-al-Din street, which is one of two evacuation routes from northern Gaza to the south.
What does the footage show?
The longest video we have verified is too graphic for us to show. It's a scene of total carnage. Men are seen running towards a truck yelling prayers and laments into the smoke-filled air. Sirens and car alarms howl throughout.
As the camera moves closer to the truck, the extent of the devastation becomes clear. Bodies, twisted and mangled, are scattered everywhere. Later, the broken body of a small child - a boy, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt - is seen lying on the truck, his head twisted awkwardly towards the camera. We counted at least 12 dead bodies among the wreckage. They are mostly women and children - some of whom appear to be as young as two to five years old.
Other footage shows the bodies of victims lying in the street. Vehicles are seen burning, likely with their drivers and passengers still inside.
Verifying the aftermath
A number of videos have now emerged on social media showing the immediate aftermath of the strike.
Local media reports said the attack took place on Salah al-Din road, a major highway that runs north to south across the strip, and one of just two evacuation routes for civilians living in the north.
The road was full of traffic all day on Friday as Gazans based in the north adhered to Israeli warnings to vacate the area.
We began by verifying the first video, that shows the devastating aftermath of the attack. We focused our attention on this 45km-stretch (28 miles) of road, beginning with the north, as that was where the convoy was likely to have set off from.
As well as the scenes of death and destruction, the video also yielded a number of key details - buildings, road markings, signs - that offered clues to the location.
Using freely available satellite imagery we looked along this road, searching for areas that matched the details we had seen. We placed the location a few kilometres from the southern outskirts of Gaza City.
We performed a reverse-image search on certain keyframes in the footage to ensure that the material was fresh, and had not been reposted from an older incident as often occurs on social media.
Finally, we used online tools that identify the angle of sunlight and length of shadows to ascertain that the footage was filmed at 17:30 local time (14:30 GMT) on 13 October.
Having established the key details, we were then able to identify common features in other footage claiming to show the incident.
This included a video shot from about 100 meters away which showed the burning vehicles, but not the truck that seems to have borne the brunt of the strike.
Before the attack
Another video started circulating on X (formerly known as Twitter) early on Saturday morning.
It shows a convoy fleeing northern Gaza, filmed close to the location where the aftermath of the strike was recorded.
We estimate that more than 30 people are on board the vehicle in the video. We do not know for sure if this truck was the exact one hit in the footage we have seen from the strike.
Online software which analyses the angle of shadows tells us the video was likely filmed between 15:30 and 17:20 local time on Saturday.
The width and partition in the road shows it must be a major road, as the wide truck shown wouldn't fit down a residential street.
Using satellite imagery, we were able to verify the vehicle's exact location using the position of nearby buildings and trees, and analysing the shadows cast by residential buildings.
We also know that the attack took place south of this location. This video was filmed north-east of the attack, which is likely where the convoy would have been in the hours before it was hit.
Source: www.bbc.com