Cairo, Sept 17. (dpa/GNA) – At least 20 people, including children, were killed and about 25 others injured, when a residential building collapsed in Gaza City overnight, a spokesman for the Hamas-controlled civil defence authority said on Wednesday.
The spokesman, Mahmud Basal, said that about 100 people were believed to be trapped under the rubble. He said rescue workers were searching for survivors but lacked equipment and heavy machinery.
According to Palestinian sources, the six-storey building was damaged by Israeli strikes during the Gaza war.
Throughout the conflict between Israel and the Islamist Hamas militant group, buildings weakened by fighting have repeatedly collapsed.
The Israeli army said it did not strike the building in question during the war.
According to residents, more than 60 people, most of them displaced by the war, were staying in the building overnight. The civil defence said displaced people sheltering in tents next to the building were also believed to be among the victims.
Footage circulating on social media, is said to show mountains of rubble following the building’s collapse. One video shows volunteers trying to free a crying child, trapped among the rubble.
A ceasefire in the Gaza war has technically been in place since October 2025. Israel has recently stepped up its airstrikes again, saying it has been targeting senior Hamas members.
The war was triggered by the Hamas massacre on October 7, 2023, in Israel. The Gaza Strip has been extensively destroyed and many hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have lost their homes.
They are living in makeshift shelters such as tents or in damaged buildings that are often at risk of collapse.
GNA