The dead in the Shati refugee camp were family members, Palestinian rescuers and relatives say.
Gaza City – At least ten Palestinians, including eight children, have been killed by an Israeli airstrike at their home in the Shati refugee camp on the Gaza Strip, after the fifth night of relentless bombing of the besieged enclave.
Early Saturday, rescue workers were digging among the rubble of the Abu Hatab family home, where more people are believed to be buried.
At least 15 people were injured in the airstrike, including a child named Omar.
Nabil Abu Al Reesh, a doctor who cared for survivors at al-Shifa hospital, said people who responded “are still trying to recover more bodies and find out who is who.”
“This is really a massacre that cannot be described,” he told Al Jazeera.
A man who identified himself as a cousin of the homeowner told Al Jazeera that the attack happened “without any warning.”
“We ran outside; we saw how the four-story house was completely demolished. It was completely leveled, ”he said.
He added that the owner’s sister and children were visiting when the attack took place.
“They were all killed,” he said. “All of them.”
A boy who was injured in the attack told Al Jazeera from the hospital that “the missiles hit and the windows shattered.”
“It simply came to our notice then. They hurt us, “he said.” We started running barefoot and my sister left all our belongings behind. “
An injured Palestinian child is sitting on the bed of an al-Shifa hospital [Mahmud Hams/AFP]
In accordance with the United Nations refugee agency for Palestinians, Shati is the third of eight refugee camps in the Gaza Strip and one of the busiest. It houses more than 85,000 refugees, who reside in an area of only 0.52 square kilometers.
Other sites in Gaza affected by Israeli missiles on Saturday included a bank and the Interior Ministry. Another airstrike reportedly also attacked a house in Khan Yunis.
Hamas, the group that governs the Gaza Strip, responded to the latest attack on the Shati refugee camp by firing a rocket reservoir at the southern cities of Israel, Askhelon and Ashdod. No casualties were reported.
The Israeli bombing of Gaza has killed at least 139 Palestinians, including 40 children, and injured more than 920 since Monday, when, after days of protests against the forced expulsion of Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem and subsequent Israeli crackdowns and raids on the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex, Hamas began firing rockets at Israel.
The rockets, many of which have been intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system, have killed at least eight people in Israel, including a child.
In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces did dead at least 13 Palestinians protesting the continued Israeli occupation and the ongoing bombing of Gaza, while violence between Palestinian Israeli citizens and Israeli Jews has persisted amid escalation.
