GAZA CITY, Palestine: Gaza authorities said Wednesday that 12 children were among the 21 people killed when an apartment building collapsed due to damage sustained in earlier Israeli strikes.
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.
The vast majority of buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed by Israeli strikes throughout the military campaign, according to the United Nations.
Relatives crouched on the floor to say their final goodbyes to loved ones, kissing the faces of the dead between sobs.
“These buildings are nothing but ticking time bombs,” said Ahmed Al-Ajla, whose uncle and other relatives were killed in the collapse.
“Before his death, my uncle… had endured displacement, poverty, imprisonment and loss,” Ajila told AFP, decrying the lingering danger from “houses on the verge of collapse”.
Gaza residents living in damaged buildings
The civil defence agency said the building was housing more than 100 displaced people and had sustained damage from previous Israeli strikes.
It said its rescue teams, “after hours of arduous work… recovered the bodies of 21 people who had been trapped under the rubble”.
Gaza’s interior ministry and health ministry both gave the same toll, noting it included 12 children and five women.
The civil defence said it had also helped transport 45 injured people to hospital.
The building was hit multiple times in 2024 and in March of 2025, leading to warnings for Gazans not to go back, civil defence spokesman Mahmoud Bassal said.
“They have no other choice. With neither tents nor homes available, they are living in cracked, damaged buildings despite the risk of collapse,” he added.
Earlier on Wednesday, footage showed the building reduced to an immense pile of shattered concrete, towering over a team of rescuers in high-visibility vests conducting a desperate search.
Excavators worked to remove the debris, while rescuers and volunteers carried out the dead.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said it had supplied materials to help the search effort at the request of local authorities.
‘Grave risks’
Israel launched relentless strikes on Gaza after the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack.
Since October 2023, the Israeli military campaign has killed more than 73,700 people in Gaza, according to Gaza’s health ministry, whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.
With so many Palestinians left homeless, and major shortages of construction materials, many Gaza residents have taken the risk of moving into shaky buildings.
The UN’s humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territories, Ramiz Alakbarov, said he was “devastated” by Wednesday’s news.
“Today’s tragedy underscores the grave risks faced by families living in these structures and the urgent need for safer alternatives. No one should have to risk their life simply to find a safe place to shelter,” he said.
Gaza’s civil defence agency has identified around 2,000 buildings in the territory that it says are at risk of collapse.
Israel has allowed additional aid into Gaza since the declaration of a US-brokered ceasefire in October 2025.
But it has kept carrying out strikes, and has restricted the entry of a range of equipment that it says could also have military use.
