Gaza City Building Collapse Kills 21, Including 11 Children

A building sheltering displaced families in Gaza City collapsed early Wednesday, killing 21 people, among them 11 children and five women, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. At least 14 others were injured, and rescuers said they had finished digging through the debris by Wednesday afternoon.

Civil defence workers were seen breaking apart stones and pulling a man's body from beneath the rubble, wrapping the remains and carrying them to an ambulance as an excavator worked in the background. Residents gathered nearby as bulldozers cleared the wreckage, with one voice audible asking whether anyone might still be alive underneath.

According to Gaza's civil defence, about six displaced Palestinian families had been living in the building even though it was known to be unstable after earlier wartime damage. A resident of Gaza City, Wajdi al-Qasbaghli, said the families had been warned to evacuate two weeks earlier but had nowhere to go.

"They warned them two weeks ago, telling them to evacuate. But where were they supposed to go? Where?" he said. "Children have been orphaned today — who will take responsibility?"

The collapse highlights the precarious conditions facing most of the enclave's population as a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas remains stalled. No reconstruction has taken place since the truce was reached almost a year ago; Israel has said it will not permit rebuilding until Hamas disarms, and only a handful of excavators have been allowed into Gaza.

COGAT, the Israeli military body that coordinates aid to the territory, did not respond when asked whether it would allow machinery in to assist with the collapse.

Roughly two million people in Gaza now live in an area covering less than half of the territory, dependent on aid and surrounded by Israeli troops who carry out strikes or attacks on a near-daily basis. Rescue teams are also trying to recover hundreds of bodies from buildings destroyed earlier in the war, with few working excavators and a dwindling fuel supply. On Wednesday, the UN human rights chief said he feared the bodies recovered so far represented only the "tip of the iceberg."

In the aftermath of the collapse, people searched for missing relatives or their remains, some sitting atop the rubble and pulling at scraps of colour they hoped were clothing worn by survivors. All they found were dust-covered blankets lodged in the debris.