Heartbreaking story behind video of young man burnt to death after Israeli strike
The image of a person burning alive among tents in a hospital compound in Gaza has been widely shared online.
Warning: This story contains details and images readers may find distressing
The video captures the moments after an Israeli strike on al Aqsa hospital in Deir al Balah on Monday, in which medics said three people were killed and 40 others were wounded.
The person in the flames was 19-year-old Shaban al Dalu. He was just days away from his 20th birthday.
In the footage he appears to be connected to an IV line, though Sky News was unable to independently verify what the object shown is.
Here, Sky News looks at his story, as our analysis reveals the compound had been struck six times this year.
Shaban was sheltering in a tent in the compound of the hospital with his parents and five siblings. In a YouTube video he posted in February speaking from a tent he built, he said they had been displaced five times.
At the time of the strike, Shaban was recovering from an injury he had suffered 10 days ago.
Shaban al Dalu was burnt alive after an Israeli strike on a hospital compound
Shaban’s 16-year-old brother Mohammed identified him in the video of the fire following the strike.
He told Sky News: “My father was busy with my younger brother so I couldn’t help but run towards Shaban to try to help him. People stopped me from getting closer to the danger, saying the civil defence was on its way to put the fire out.
“I kept saying ‘but my brother is on fire! My brother is on fire! Please let me go.’ They wouldn’t let me. My brother was burning in front of my eyes and I couldn’t do anything to help him. It’s an indescribable feeling.”
Their mother, Alaa, was also trapped and died in the inferno.
Shaban, a computer system engineering student, was trying to leave Gaza and had launched a fundraising page online.
“I used to have big dreams, but the war has ruined them. It has taken a toll on me, making me physically and mentally sick… Time feels like it’s stopped in Gaza, and we’re stuck in a never-ending nightmare,” Shaban wrote on his GoFundMe page.
Shaban al Dalu
Shaban and his family before the invasion of Gaza
Shaban’s 14-year-old cousin Tasnim was also at the compound when the Israeli strike hit. He told Sky News: “I really don’t understand what we did to deserve this? We’re displaced families. Moving around from one place to the next. That’s all we can do. What did we do wrong?”
Satellite pictures taken on Saturday shows dozens of tents or makeshift shelters in the grounds. Many displaced Palestinians have sought refuge in hospital grounds since the start of the war.
Satellite imagery showing al Aqsa hospital compound on 12 October. Pic: Maxar
The strike has been criticised by UN acting under secretary general for humanitarian affairs, Joyce Msuya, who said “there seems to be no end to the horrors that Palestinians in Gaza are forced to endure”.
The Israeli military said it was a “precise strike on terrorists” operating in a “command and control centre” in a car park next to the hospital.
Israel accuses Hamas of using civilian facilities like hospitals for military purposes, which Hamas denies.
IDF international spokesperson, Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani, said a “fire ignited” in the hospital’s car park after the strike, adding that it was “most likely due to secondary explosions. The incident is under review”.
Sky analysis of previous attacks on the compound shows it has been hit six times since the end of March.
Locations of attacks in hospital compound over 12 October satellite imagery. Pic: Maxar
The first occurred on 31 March. The IDF hit a location close to the hospital’s main building, claiming it was targeting a command centre used by the Palestinian group Islamic Jihad.
As it does now, the affected area was occupied by tents.
The head of the World Health Organization said that strike caused four deaths and 14 injuries.
The compound was hit again on 22 July. The IDF has not made a public statement on this strike.
Video from the scene shows tents reportedly used by journalists on fire. At the time, Associated Press reported that one person was killed.
On 4 August, the IDF targeted another area of the compound. At least five people were reportedly killed.
In comments to the media, the IDF said the strike was targeting a militant in the area.
On 5 September, an Israeli strike hit an area in the west of the compound. While the IDF did not confirm the strike’s precise location, it claimed it had targeted a Hamas command centre in the area.
Before Monday, the most recent strike at the hospital compound occurred on 27 September, when an area covered in tents was hit.
While the IDF did not comment publicly on this strike, components of a missile are visible in footage from the scene. Markings on the debris identify it as a Hellfire missile, which are used by Israel and other US allies.
Speaking to Sky News, former US army explosive ordnance disposal technician Trevor Ball said the fragment was from a Hellfire missile.
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
Donald Trump has agreed to send “top of the line weapons” to NATO to support Ukraine – and threatened Russia with “severe” tariffs if it doesn’t agree to end the war.
Speaking with NATO secretary general Mark Rutte during a meeting at the White House, the US president said: “We’ve made a deal today where we are going to be sending them weapons, and they’re going to be paying for them.
“This is billions of dollars worth of military equipment which is going to be purchased from the United States,” he added, “going to NATO, and that’s going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield.”
Weapons being sent include surface-to-air Patriot missile systems and batteries, which Ukraine has asked for to defend itself from Russian air strikes.
Pic: Reuters
Mr Trump also said he was “very unhappy” with Russia, and threatened “severe tariffs” of “about 100%” if there isn’t a deal to end the war in Ukraine within 50 days.
The White House added that the US would put “secondary sanctions” on countries that buy oil from Russia if an agreement was not reached.
It comes after weeks of frustration from Mr Trump against Vladimir Putin’s refusal to agree to an end to the conflict, with the Russian leader telling the US president he would “not back down” from Moscow’s goals in Ukraine at the start of the month.
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Trump says Putin ‘talks nice and then bombs everybody’
During the briefing on Monday, Mr Trump said he had held calls with Mr Putin where he would think “that was a nice phone call,” but then “missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city, and that happens three or four times”.
“I don’t want to say he’s an assassin, but he’s a tough guy,” he added.
Earlier this year, Mr Trump told Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy “you’re gambling with World War Three” in a fiery White House meeting, and suggested Ukraine started the war against Russia as he sought to negotiate an end to the conflict.
After Mr Trump’s briefing, Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev said on Telegram: “If this is all that Trump had in mind to say about Ukraine today, then all the steam has gone out.”
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Meanwhile, Mr Zelenskyy met with US special envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv, where they “discussed the path to peace” by “strengthening Ukraine’s air defence, joint production, and procurement of defence weapons in collaboration with Europe”.
He thanked both the envoy for the visit and Mr Trump “for the important signals of support and the positive decisions for both our countries”.
At least 30 people have been killed in the Syrian city of Sweida in clashes between local military groups and tribes, according to Syria’s interior ministry.
Officials say initial figures suggest around 100 people have also been injured in the city, where the Druze faith is one of the major religious groups.
The interior ministry said its forces will directly intervene to resolve the conflict, which the Reuters news agency said involved fighting between Druze gunmen and Bedouin Sunni tribes.
It marks the latest episode of sectarian violence in Syria, where fears among minority groups have increased since Islamist-led rebels toppled President Bashar al Assad in December, installing their own government and security forces.
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In March, Sky’s Stuart Ramsay described escalating violence within Syria
The violence reportedly erupted after a wave of kidnappings, including the abduction of a Druze merchant on Friday on the highway linking Damascus to Sweida.
Last April, Sunni militia clashed with armed Druze residents of Jaramana, southeast of Damascus, and fighting later spread to another district near the capital.
But this is the first time the fighting has been reported inside the city of Sweida itself, the provincial capital of the mostly Druze province.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports the fighting was centred in the Maqwas neighbourhood east of Sweida and villages on the western and northern outskirts of the city.
It adds that Syria’s Ministry of Defence has deployed military convoys to the area.
Western nations, including the US and UK, have been increasingly moving towards normalising relations with Syria.
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UK aims to build relationship with Syria
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Concerns among minority groups have intensified following the killing of hundreds of Alawites in March, in apparent retaliation for an earlier attack carried out by Assad loyalists.
That was the deadliest sectarian flare-up in years in Syria, where a 14-year civil war ended with Assad fleeing to Russia after his government was overthrown by rebel forces.
The city of Sweida is in southern Syria, about 24 miles (38km) north of the border with Jordan.
The man convicted of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher has been charged with sexual assault against an ex-girlfriend.
Rudy Guede, 38, was the only person who was definitively convicted of the murder of 21-year-old Ms Kercher in Perugia, Italy, back in 2007.
He will be standing trial again in November after an ex-girlfriend filed a police report in the summer of 2023 accusing Guede of mistreatment, personal injury and sexual violence.
Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was released from prison for the murder of Leeds University student Ms Kercher in 2021, after having served about 13 years of a 16-year sentence.
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Since last year – when this investigation was still ongoing – Guede has been under a “special surveillance” regime, Sky News understands, meaning he was banned from having any contact with the woman behind the sexual assault allegations, including via social media, and had to inform police any time he left his city of residence, Viterbo, as ruled by a Rome court.
Guede has been serving a restraining order and fitted with an electronic ankle tag.
The Kercher murder case, in the university city of Perugia, was the subject of international attention.
Ms Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, was found murdered in the flat she shared with her American roommate, Amanda Knox.
The Briton’s throat had been cut and she had been stabbed 47 times.
(L-R) Raffaele Sollecito, Meredith Kercher and Amanda Knox. File pic: AP
Ms Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were placed under suspicion.
Both were initially convicted of murder, but Italy’s highest court overturned their convictions, acquitting them in 2015.
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