Gaza (QNN)- At least 21 Palestinians, including five children, were killed, while dozens remain trapped under the rubble after a partially damaged residential building collapsed in Gaza City overnight. The Civil Defense said rescue operations have been severely hampered by a lack of the necessary equipment amid Israeli restrictions.
Palestinian Civil Defense teams have been conducting search and rescue operations for people believed to be trapped beneath the rubble of the collapsed building west of Gaza City.
The Sa’ada building was home to at least ten displaced families, comprising around 100 people. It had previously sustained damage from Israeli shelling.
Footage from the scene shows residents clearing debris with their bare hands in an attempt to reach a young girl trapped beneath the rubble, whose cries can be heard in the video.
Palestinian Civil Defense said its teams had recovered 21 bodies, including five children, and rescued about 30 people alive from the debris.
The building collapsed at around 2 a.m. while residents were asleep.
“Beneath this building there are about 100 bodies — or 100 people whose fate remains unknown,” a Civil Defense spokesperson said during a news conference.
The spokesperson urged the immediate provision of heavy equipment needed to continue the recovery operations, warning that rescue efforts are progressing slowly because first responders lack the machinery required to reach those trapped beneath the rubble.
“We can still hear the voices of people alive beneath the rubble, so there is still hope,” said Rayed al-Dahshan, director of Gaza’s Civil Defense agency.
“We expect the rescue and recovery operations to take a long time because we are working with our bare hands. The situation is extremely sensitive, and the difficulties we face are due to the lack of resources. Civil Defense needs heavy equipment so it can respond immediately.”
The spokesperson also warned that around 2,000 buildings across inhabited areas of the Gaza Strip are in similarly precarious structural conditions, with residents unable to evacuate because they have no alternative shelter.
About 2,000 buildings in Gaza are in real danger of collapsing, with roughly 300,000 people still searching for proper shelter, according to Jaco Cilliers, special representative for the Programme of Assistance to the Palestinian People at the UNDP.
Mounir al-Bursh, director-general of Gaza’s Health Ministry, said that the six-storey building, which collapsed on displaced residents and people in neighbouring tents after being struck by nearby shelling, had previously sustained damage during Israeli bombardment.
Al-Bursh confirmed about 100 people remained missing, with more than 75 names registered by relatives so far, including about 50 children.
“We are in a brutal race against time, and every minute means another life lost,” he added.
“The voices of people calling for help can still be heard from beneath the rubble,” he added. “Rescue crews are working with extremely limited resources; we lack all the heavy machinery and equipment needed to lift concrete blocks and reach those trapped.”
“There are many voices coming from beneath the rubble, so we are in a race against time and are doing what we can. The equipment available is insufficient,” Alessandro Mrakic, UNDP director in Gaza, said, adding the rescue effort is “a marathon operation”.
Mrakic said a UNDP damage assessment identified 400 buildings at risk of collapse following Israel’s genocidal war on the Strip.
“Considering the restrictions on space – where around two million people are living – people are returning to these buildings regardless of … lack of safety standards,” he said.
“Winter will come with rain, and we may see increased risks of these buildings collapsing,” he warned.
Mrakic called for the urgent entry of additional equipment and fuel. “All the contractors working with us today were suffering from fuel shortages and a lack of spare parts.”
Speaking in response to reports that approximately 100 people are missing under the rubble of a collapsed building in Gaza City, Jaco Cilliers said, “This is a tragic situation, and our hearts go out to those families who have lost relatives already and those that are still under the rubble of damaged buildings.”
He said buildings will continue collapsing from prior damage as displaced residents seek “dignified shelters to return to their homes”, even when many structures are unsafe.
Cilliers said the UNDP is working to clear rubble but needs “the right equipment and mechanisms to remove them safely”, adding that damaged buildings require material, restoration and inspection by engineers before people can safely return, but that desperation is pushing people into dangerous situations.
Cilliers said nearly 10,000 people remain missing under the rubble across Gaza. While clearing roads for humanitarian access remains the programme’s main focus, he said, “We still find bodies on a regular basis.”
The Gaza municipality said that Gaza City and the Palestinian people “were devastated at dawn” by the collapse of the six-storey al-Saada building.
The municipality said that “initial estimates indicate that around 100 people have been killed, injured or remain missing, with the number potentially rising”.
In a statement, it said the incident “once again highlights the grave danger” posed by damaged buildings, “particularly as the rainy season approaches” and extended condolences to the families of those killed while wishing the injured “a speedy recovery”.
The municipality warned of “dozens of damaged buildings at risk of collapse across the city’s neighbourhoods, which directly threaten the lives of those sheltering in them who have no access to safe accommodation”.
It urged the international community to “intervene urgently to provide mobile homes and essential supplies for safe shelter”, particularly before winter begins in three months.
It also called for “rescue equipment and machinery” to clear rubble and address at-risk structures, and stressed “the need to provide construction materials to shore up buildings at risk of collapse”.
Ramiz Alakbarov, the UN humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory, also said he’s “devastated” by reports of people trapped under rubble following the deadly building collapse in Gaza.
Hundreds of damaged and unsafe structures from Israeli attacks are inhabited in war-battered Gaza, noted Alakbarov.
“No one should have to risk their life simply to find a safe place to shelter,” he said.
Tayseer Mheisen, an adviser to Gaza’s Government Media Office, has told Al Jazeera that the collapse of a residential building in Gaza City was “a small-scale example” of a tragedy repeating itself across the territory.
“Israel consistently obstructs any UN or international intervention to bring in the most important equipment that could save victims’ lives beneath the rubble,” Mheisen said.
He said the six-storey building had 75 people still trapped beneath it, with 16 dead, including five children, recovered so far. “Entire families have been erased from the civil registry because they were all asleep in this building when it collapsed on them,” he said.
He warned that “we are approaching winter, with everything that winter brings”. He said the international community had failed to act. “The truth is that humanity has not taken even one step towards the single necessary action: pressuring Israel to open the crossings,” he said.
He said rescuers typically have about three days to find survivors alive, but that Gaza’s civil defense director had told him it could take “days, indeed weeks,” to reach victims. “That means we will lose dozens of lives,” Mheisen said.
Palestinians have blamed Israel for the deadly collapse of the building.
In a statement by the Gaza government’s media office, authorities said the building’s collapse “exacerbates the humanitarian catastrophe” in the Strip.
“We hold the occupation and the international community fully responsible,” the statement read.
“We call upon all countries of the world and international and UN organizations to intervene immediately to lift the unjust siege on the Gaza Strip, open all crossings, and allow the immediate entry of rescue and civil defence equipment and supplies, in addition to all the urgent and essential humanitarian and relief needs of the Gaza Strip,” the statement concluded.
Israel has also imposed severe restrictions on the entry of heavy equipment that civil defense teams need to safely clear rubble and carry out rescues. The shortage has left rescue crews relying largely on manual labour to reach people trapped in similar collapses, slowing response times in emergencies.
