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A building housing dozens of people collapsed in Gaza City early Wednesday morning, leaving rescuers clawing with bare hands through rubble until determining that 21 people, including 11 children, had been killed in their sleep.
The six-storey building, which had four apartments per floor, crumbled overnight onto nearby homes and tents in the Tal al-Hawa area of Gaza City, according to the civil defence agency, which works as a rescue service under Hamas authority.
The sudden collapse of the building, which was known to be unstable because of damage from Israeli strikes earlier in the war, underscored how perilous and desperate living conditions have grown for the majority of the enclave’s population as a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas stalls.
Excavators bearing Egyptian flags worked to remove the debris next to rows of tents for displaced people, while rescuers and volunteers carried out the dead wrapped in white plastic body bags.
“My friend and neighbours live in this building. I came to help my friend retrieve some clothes and mattresses. He currently has no shelter or home,” said Mohannad Al-Mashharawi.
‘No other choice’
“The lack of options and alternatives left them with no other choice,” said Aboud Majdalawi, a rescuer with Gaza’s civil defence.
All of Gaza’s roughly 2 million people now live in a stretch of land that makes up less than half the territory. They remain dependent on aid and are surrounded by Israeli troops who carry out strikes or attacks on a near-daily basis.
In the aftermath of the collapse, people were searching desperately for loved ones or their remains.
A group of men was seen carrying the headless body of a child. Others sat atop a pile of rubble, pulling desperately at flashes of color they believed could be clothing worn by a survivor. All they found were dust-caked blankets wedged in the debris.
The collapse comes as rescuers in the Gaza Strip are trying to unearth hundreds of bodies from buildings collapsed by Israeli strikes earlier in the war. They have just a few working excavators, and their fuel supply is dwindling.
On Wednesday, the UN human rights chief said that he worried that the bodies recovered so far are just the “tip of the iceberg.”
Despite an October ceasefire that has reduced fighting in Gaza, Israel has continued to carry out strikes, killing at least 1,375 people since the agreement went into effect, according to local health officials.
The nearly three-year Israel-Hamas war has killed more than 73,789 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by UN agencies and international organisations. It doesn’t distinguish between civilians and militants, but says women and children make up around half the toll.