The public prosecutor’s office in Dortmund has initiated a death investigation in order to gain information about the case of a German family who were allegedly killed in the Gaza war. According to unconfirmed reports, the family of six who last lived in Dortmund died while staying in the Gaza Strip at the end of October, a spokesman for the public prosecutor’s office said on Thursday when asked. A rocket is said to have hit the house in which the couple and their four children were staying. WDR had previously reported on the investigations that had begun.
The public prosecutor explained the proceedings by examining whether the family actually died and what circumstances led to this in this case. A brother of the father of the family stated that he and his wife and four children were killed in a rocket attack in the Gaza Strip. There is no confirmation of this yet. The public prosecutor’s office is now trying to gain new information about this.
The Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office saw no initial suspicion of a crime within its jurisdiction. The spokesman for the public prosecutor’s office said that she had therefore handed the case over to the Dortmund authorities because the family had last lived in the Ruhr area city. The “Süddeutsche Zeitung” also recently reported that the family died in an Israeli attack at the end of October.
The Gaza war was triggered by the worst massacre in Israel’s history, carried out by terrorists from the Islamist Hamas and other extremist groups on October 7th in Israel near the border with Gaza. On the Israeli side, more than 1,200 people were killed. Israel responded with massive air strikes and a ground offensive. According to the Hamas-controlled health authority, almost 20,000 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the war began.
