Building collapse kills 21 in Gaza as rescue efforts hampered by machinery restrictions

In the early hours of Wednesday morning, a building that had already been damaged by war gave way entirely in Gaza, killing at least 21 people—six of them children—and trapping dozens more beneath concrete and rubble. At least 14 others were injured in the collapse. By midday, rescue workers were still moving through the wreckage, searching for survivors in conditions that forced them to work largely by hand, digging through debris without the heavy machinery that would normally be essential to such work.

Raed Al-Dahshan, who directs Gaza City's civil defense service, said rescuers could still hear voices coming from under the rubble as the search continued. He noted that at least ten families had been living in the building at the time it fell, and he expressed hope that more people might yet be pulled out alive. The death toll was expected to rise as the work went on. One resident, Mohannad Al-Mashharawi, told reporters he had come to the site to help a friend retrieve some belongings—clothes, mattresses, anything salvageable—because that friend now had nowhere else to live.

The absence of heavy machinery at the scene points to a larger constraint shaping life across Gaza. Israel has restricted the entry of such equipment into the territory, citing security concerns: the fear that Hamas militants could use bulldozers, excavators, and other machines the way they were used in the October 2023 raid into Israel that killed over 1,200 people and prompted Israel's military campaign in Gaza. That campaign has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians, the vast majority of them civilians. Since a ceasefire brokered by the United States took effect in October 2025, more than 1,300 Palestinians have been killed, while Israel says four of its soldiers have died.

Alessandro Mrakic, who heads the United Nations Development Program's office in Gaza, described the rescue effort as tragic precisely because the tools needed to do the work safely simply are not available. "People are digging with their bare hands," he said. The machinery restrictions mean that not only rescue operations but reconstruction itself moves at a crawl, leaving families in a state of precarious shelter.

According to Gaza authorities, approximately 2,000 damaged buildings across the territory remain occupied by Palestinian families. Many of these families have told Reuters that these structures, however unstable, are the only shelter they have—the only way to protect themselves from wind and rain when sufficient tents are not available. As autumn turns toward winter, the risk intensifies. Mrakic warned that about 400 buildings are now at serious risk of collapse, and he predicted that many of them will fail once rain and wet weather arrive. "We know that these buildings will collapse, especially now with the upcoming winter," he said.

Ramiz Alakbarov, the UN's Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, called Wednesday's collapse a stark illustration of the danger facing families with no better options. "No one should have to risk their life simply to find a safe place to shelter," he said, and he emphasized the urgent need for safer alternatives. The immediate crisis—the search through rubble, the count of the dead—is unfolding against a backdrop of a much larger one: hundreds of structures that could fail at any moment, and thousands of people living in them because they have nowhere else to go.