Gaza building collapse kills at least 20

At least 20 people, including five children, have been killed after a war-damaged residential building collapsed in Gaza City, local rescue teams said, as crews searched through pancaked floors for dozens still missing beneath the rubble.

The multi-storey building in the Tal al-Hawa area came down overnight, trapping families who had been living there despite warnings that the apartments were unsafe. Local residents told the BBC that 10 families had been staying in the building.

The Palestinian Civil Defence said earlier Wednesday that at least 16 people had been killed, including five children, and 14 others injured when the building collapsed. The BBC later reported the toll had risen to at least 20, citing local rescue teams.

Video from the scene showed rescuers and residents digging through the wreckage of the building, whose floors had collapsed onto one another. Footage verified by Al Jazeera showed rescue teams pulling children from the rubble as residents dug by hand. Witnesses and the footage indicated that children’s cries for help could be heard from beneath the debris while civil defence crews worked to reach survivors.

One video showed a young girl being pulled alive from the wreckage. Other survivors, including young children who appeared breathless, were seen emerging from the rubble before being taken away by ambulance.

Mahmoud Basal, a Gaza Civil Defence spokesperson, told Al Jazeera that crews were still trying to recover bodies and find missing people. “Civil defence teams are still working to recover martyrs from under the rubble and search for missing people. Until now, there are nearly 100 Palestinians still under the rubble of this building,” he said.

Rescue workers said the effort has been slowed by a lack of equipment. Members of the Hamas-run Civil Defence rescue service told the BBC they initially worked with “empty hands” because of tight Israeli restrictions on equipment allowed into Gaza, though they later managed to borrow some heavy machinery.

Basal said many Palestinians remain in dangerous buildings because they have nowhere else to go. They are forced to stay in structures that “threaten their lives,” he said, citing “the absence of refugee centres or suitable tents.”

Local media reported that the building had previously been hit in an Israeli bombing, leaving it cracked and structurally unsound before the collapse. Gaza’s Government Media Office said the building had six floors, with four apartments on each floor, and said it had been “directly targeted” during the war, weakening its structural integrity and causing it to fall. The office said it held “the Israeli occupation and the international community fully and directly responsible” for the incident.

Yahya Al Sarraj, the mayor of Gaza City, told Al Jazeera that authorities feared further collapses. “This is not the first collapse of a building and we fear that it may not be the last one,” he said. He said the municipality and civil defence were “paralysed” and that their tools were inadequate despite rescue efforts.

The collapse came as Israeli strikes continued elsewhere in Gaza. On Tuesday, Israeli air strikes killed at least five Palestinians, including two children and a Hamas commander, according to health officials and Hamas sources cited by the BBC. The Israeli military said it killed a Hamas commander in southern Gaza and another fighter in the north. In both cases, a child was also reportedly killed.

Separately, the British charity Medical Aid for Palestinians said a patient was killed by an Israeli drone at a health centre it supports in Jabalia, in northern Gaza.