A war damaged residential building housing displaced Palestinian families collapsed overnight in Gaza City, killing at least 21 people, including at least 11 children, as rescuers dug through the rubble by hand searching for others still trapped, officials said Wednesday.
Zaher al-Wahidi, a spokesperson for the Gaza Health Ministry, said 21 people died and at least 14 were injured in the collapse. A separate account citing the health ministry put the injury count at 25 and described five of the dead as women, while another report said 12 children were among the victims, discrepancies in both the injury total and the children’s death toll that had not been resolved as of the latest reporting.
The building, known locally as the al-Saada building, had six floors with four apartments on each floor and had previously been struck by Israeli forces earlier in the war, weakening its structure. When it collapsed, it fell onto tents pitched beside it that sheltered additional displaced families, witnesses said. The Associated Press reported it was not immediately clear what caused the collapse, while Gaza’s Government Media Office and local reports attributed it directly to structural damage from the earlier strike.
What We Know So Far
Mohammed Abu Dan, a civil defense supervisor overseeing the recovery effort, said more than 10 families had been living in the building, with displaced residents forced to stay there because no other shelter was available. “Search and rescue operations are being carried out under extremely difficult conditions due to a lack of the necessary equipment and resources,” Abu Dan said.
Raed al-Dahshan, director of Gaza City’s civil defense service, said rescuers could still hear voices from beneath the rubble hours after the collapse, giving some hope that additional survivors might be found. Civil defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basal said nearly 100 Palestinians remained under the rubble of the building as of the latest update, a figure well above earlier estimates that had described dozens as trapped. Basal said reaching them remained extremely difficult given the lack of appropriate heavy equipment.
Palestinian and U.N. officials have attributed the shortage of rescue equipment to Israeli restrictions on what can enter Gaza. Israel has said its restrictions are intended to prevent equipment from reaching militant groups. Alessandro Mrakic, head of the U.N. Development Programme’s Gaza office, said rescuers including personnel from U.N. agencies and Egypt’s relief agency were taking part in the operation. “There are actually people that are digging with their bare hands. We need to prepare for more deaths,” Mrakic said.
Gaza City Mayor Yahya Al Sarraj said the municipality and civil defense services remain effectively paralyzed by inadequate tools even as they work to rescue trapped residents. “This is not the first collapse of a building and we fear that it may not be the last one,” Al Sarraj said. Gaza’s Government Media Office said in a statement that it holds Israel and the international community fully and directly responsible for the collapse, describing the building as having been directly targeted during the war in a way that weakened its structural integrity and ultimately caused its failure.
Ramiz Alakbarov, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, said he was devastated by the deaths and ongoing reports of people trapped under the rubble, while praising the quick humanitarian response from Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. He said every minute counted in the continuing effort to save lives.
Broader Context in Gaza
Such building collapses have become a recurring hazard across Gaza, where the majority of structures have been damaged or destroyed and no large scale reconstruction has occurred since a ceasefire took effect nearly a year ago. Israel has said it will not permit major rebuilding until Hamas disarms. With rents and available land increasingly costly, many Palestinians have returned to partially destroyed homes or moved into abandoned, structurally compromised buildings rather than remain without shelter, despite the risk of further collapse from wind, rain or renewed bombardment.
According to Gaza’s health ministry, Israeli strikes have continued since the ceasefire took effect on October 11, 2025, killing 1,369 Palestinians and wounding 4,627 as of the latest tally, and at least 73,783 Palestinians have been killed and 174,738 wounded since the war began following the Hamas led October 7, 2023, attacks that killed more than 1,200 people in Israel, according to Israeli figures. An independent United Nations inquiry concluded earlier this year that Israel had continued to commit genocide through the deliberate targeting of Palestinian children in Gaza, a finding based on the inquiry’s own investigation rather than a universally accepted legal determination.
Separately, video from Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighborhood showed the aftermath of an Israeli drone strike that killed 15-year-old Mohammed al-Zinati and wounded several others as he attempted to recover the body of a man killed in an earlier strike.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Wednesday that it was only a matter of time before Israel resumed full scale war in Gaza and moved to force out its Palestinian population, responding to criticism from a rival right wing politician ahead of Israel’s October 27 elections. Katz said 70 percent of Gaza had already been emptied of its population during the offensive Israel launched after the October 7 attacks, and said Israeli forces stood ready to finish the job and implement what he called the migration plan.
Other Middle East Developments
Saudi Arabia was reported to be reaching out to allies for help bolstering its air defenses as it contends with continued attacks from Iran backed Houthi rebels based in Yemen. Riyadh blamed the Houthis for a drone intercepted while heading toward the holy city of Mecca, a claim the group denied.
A United Nations health official separately warned of rising disease risk as thousands of Yemenis remain displaced by ongoing armed conflict in that country, underscoring the compounding humanitarian strain facing the broader region alongside the crisis in Gaza.
Why This Matters
The scale of destruction across Gaza, with an estimated 2,000 damaged buildings still standing and no reconstruction underway, means incidents like Wednesday’s collapse are likely to recur as long as displaced residents have no safer alternative to structurally compromised housing. Basal’s account of civil defense crews relying on manual excavation due to Israeli restrictions on heavy equipment highlights a direct link between the restrictions Israel maintains and the practical limitations facing rescue operations when disasters like this occur.
Katz’s remarks about resuming full scale war and advancing a population transfer plan for Gaza, made in the context of domestic political pressure ahead of Israeli elections, add a significant and provocative new dimension to the already fragile ceasefire, one that is likely to draw international scrutiny given the U.N. inquiry’s genocide finding and the continued civilian casualties reported since the ceasefire took effect.
What Happens Next
Search and rescue operations at the collapse site are continuing, with Basal’s estimate of nearly 100 people still buried suggesting the death toll could rise substantially in the coming days. Officials have not indicated when the recovery effort is expected to conclude.
Given the recurring pattern of similar collapses and the absence of reconstruction materials entering Gaza, further incidents affecting the territory’s damaged housing stock remain likely. Katz’s stated intentions regarding a resumption of full scale conflict and forced population displacement are expected to draw continued attention as Israel’s October 27 elections approach.
Reporting drawn from The Guardian, the Associated Press, Al Jazeera and Reuters
