Gaza’s Civil Defense Agency says 15 members of a Palestinian family, including 9 children and 3 women, were killed in Israeli airstrikes early Saturday.
Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesman for the Civil Defense Organization, told AFP that the Azlah family’s home was attacked in Al-Zawaida Mahalla in central Gaza. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.
“The death toll in the Israeli attack on the Azlah family’s family residence and gunhouse in al-Zawaida is 15,” Bassal said.
An eyewitness said the attack took place sometime after midnight.
Rescuers were pulling bodies from the rubble of the house that had been buried in the ground. “Three rockets hit the house directly,” Ahmed Abu al-Ghoul told AFP.
“There were numerous children and women inside…what was their crime that they met such a fate?”
AFPTV footage captured after sunrise after the attack showed rescuers searching for bodies from under stacked concrete blocks that had collapsed.
The more than 10-month-long Israel-Hamas war has left many areas of Gaza in ruins.
Hamas attacked Israeli territory on October 7. According to an AFP tally based on official information from Israel, 1,198 people were killed in the attack, most of them civilians. The war started when Israel counter-attacked.
Hamas took 251 hostages during the attack, 111 of whom are still being held in Gaza. According to the Israeli military, 39 of the hostages have already been killed.