Al-Rasafa

The attack on Al-Rasafa on March 7, 2025, is among the most thoroughly documented atrocities of the coastal campaign. Armed factions moved through the village conducting wholesale executions of families inside their own homes. More than 67 martyrs were killed, the majority of them women and children. Those who hid were found. Those who pleaded were ignored. Entire family units were wiped out. When the killing was done, the attackers turned to the village's economic life. 68 commercial shops — every bakery, every grocery, every workshop, every small business that gave Al-Rasafa its daily pulse — were looted and destroyed. The thoroughness of this was not incidental. It was a deliberate policy: take the lives, then take everything that sustains life. The surviving population, bereft of family members and livelihoods, fled into permanent displacement. Al-Rasafa no longer functioned as a community. Its 67 martyrs and its 68 destroyed shops together tell the story of what total erasure looks like.