On 21 July 2014, an Israeli rocket hit the Al-Salam tower, a high-rise building in Gaza City, and killed, among others, German citizen Ibrahim Kilani, his wife Taghreed and their five children between the ages of four and twelve years old.
Ibrahim Kilani was an architect who lived with his family in Beit Lahia in the Gaza strip. In summer 2014, Beit Lahia was one of the targets of the military operation “Protective Edge,” an operation during which Israeli armed forces conducted air strikes in the Gaza Strip between 8 July and 26 August 2014. In the course of these attacks, civilian infrastructure and houses were destroyed or heavily damaged, and hundreds of civilians were killed. At the beginning of the military operation, Israeli forces dropped leaflets warning of the planned air strikes in the region of Beit Lahia, asking the local residents to leave the area for their own safety. The family fled to the al-Shejaia neighborhood in the eastern Gaza Strip. However, continued air strikes in the region forced the family to flee again – this time to Gaza City. There they stayed in a high-rise building – the Al-Salam tower – in the district of Al-Sabra, which had just previously been designated as safe in the Israeli leaflets.
Two days later, on 21 July 2014, rockets hit the building. Israel stated that the actual target of the attack was a commander of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.