The Israeli military has killed at least 25 members of the same family in the Sabra neighbourhood of Gaza City as it ramps up strikes across the besieged enclave.
A group of homes were bombed in the early hours of Sunday by Israeli warplanes in the Sabra neighbourhood, where Israeli tanks began advancing in late August as part of a plan to destroy and seize the area.
At least 17 people have been rescued in the aftermath of the strike, and rescue work was ongoing as people and emergency responders dug with their hands and family members at the scene said they feared as many as 50 people were trapped under the rubble.
The Palestinian family made an urgent appeal for help to try to free others still trapped. Family members at the scene said they could still hear voices from the rubble.
“I appeal to the whole world: Please lend us a helping hand,” one family member said. “Our relatives are buried alive. We keep hearing their screams from under the rubble, but we cannot reach them.”
He said Israeli drones were firing on rescuers working in the rubble.
“Every time we try to reach them, the Israeli drones open fire on us. For every five men making an attempt, four are killed, and only one survives.”
Footage circulating online showed casualties being rushed away in a small vehicle surrounded by people. The video below shows a mother crying out that she lost “all of my children” in the Israeli attack in the Sabra neighbourhood, located south of Gaza City.
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Seven Palestinians, including four children, were killed in another Israeli air raid in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, an emergency source told Al Jazeera. The attack reportedly hit near a clinic operated by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
The Ministry of Health in Gaza reported on Saturday afternoon that at least 65,283 people have been killed and 166,575 others wounded by the Israeli army since the start of the war in October 2023.
It said at least four more deaths due to Israeli-induced starvation and famine were recorded over the past day, bringing the total death toll to 440 people, including 147 children.
More buildings were blown up by the Israeli military on Sunday as it tries to forcibly displace hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and seize Gaza City despite international criticism and opposition from the families of captives held in the enclave.
Many Palestinians are refusing to step outside where they are sheltering since nowhere is safe due to drone strikes and remotely controlled explosive robots planted inside displacement camps and roads, said Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud from the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.
“As of now, people’s movement has been very limited by the use of these explosives. The air is still thick with smoke,” he said.
The Israeli military estimates that more than 450,000 people have been forcibly displaced from Gaza City since the start of September. Hamas puts the number at under 300,000 people, saying about 900,000 remain.
The Israeli military said on Sunday that three divisions are leading a ground invasion in Gaza City and northern Gaza, with another division operating in Khan Younis in the south. It claimed that its soldiers killed “many terrorists who were on their way to carry out terror plots” over the past 24 hours.
Pope Leo spoke out against the forced displacement of civilians in Gaza on Sunday, saying, “Together with the pastors of the churches in the Holy Land, I repeat that there is no future based on violence, forced exile, and revenge.”
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