Gaza building collapse kills 21, including 11 children, as rescuers dig with bare hands

A four-story residential building in Gaza City gave way on Wednesday morning, collapsing onto the tents and makeshift shelters clustered beside it. When rescue workers arrived, they found at least 21 people dead—11 of them children—and dozens more trapped beneath the concrete and steel. The building had housed roughly 100 displaced Palestinian families, people with nowhere else to go, living in the cramped quarters because the alternative was the street.

The structure itself was already dying. Israeli airstrikes during the war had damaged it severely, weakening its foundations and load-bearing walls to the point of structural failure. When it collapsed, it fell directly onto the tents where families had been sleeping. Rescue teams from Gaza's civil defence recovered five children among the dead and transported 25 injured people to hospitals. As workers dug through the rubble with their bare hands, they could hear voices calling from beneath the debris—people still alive, still hoping.

Mohammed Abu Dan, a supervisor with the civil defence team, described the conditions plainly: more than ten families had been living in the building because displaced people had no alternative shelter. "Search and rescue operations are being carried out under extremely difficult conditions due to a lack of the necessary equipment and resources," he said. The absence of heavy machinery meant that every rescue attempt depended on human hands, shovels, and whatever tools could be improvised. Raed al-Dahshan, director of Gaza City's civil defence service, told rescuers to listen carefully: "We are still hearing voices from under the rubble, so there is still hope to find people."

The machinery shortage is not accidental. Palestinian and UN officials attribute it to Israeli restrictions on what can enter Gaza, citing security concerns about equipment reaching militant groups. Israel maintains that these restrictions are necessary. But the practical effect is clear: when buildings fail, rescuers dig with their hands. Alessandro Mrakic, head of the UN Development Programme's Gaza office, watched the operation unfold and spoke with blunt clarity about what he was seeing. "There are actually people that are digging with their bare hands. We need to prepare [for more deaths]," he said. UN agencies and Egypt's relief organization joined the effort, but the constraint remained absolute.

This collapse is not an isolated incident. Over the past two years, dozens of buildings damaged during the war have failed without warning, killing and injuring people who had nowhere safer to live. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians remain unable to return to neighborhoods near what is called the yellow line—territory Israel controls—forcing families to find whatever space exists elsewhere. Rents have soared. Land costs have become prohibitive. Many people have returned to partially destroyed homes or moved into abandoned buildings, clearing small spaces among the rubble despite the danger. Damaged roofs, walls, and supporting columns can give way without warning, particularly during strong winds, heavy rain, or further bombardment.

When asked whether they feared for themselves and their children, residents living in these structures offered a response that contained the entire crisis: "Yes, we are afraid, but where can we go? This is better than staying out on the street." This is the choice that has been narrowed down to: live in a building that might collapse, or have no shelter at all.

The broader context deepens the weight of Wednesday's collapse. Since a ceasefire took effect on October 11, 2025, Israeli strikes on Gaza have continued. According to Gaza's health ministry, 1,369 Palestinians have been killed and 4,627 wounded in the months since. A 15-year-old named Mohammed al-Zinati was killed in a separate drone strike in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood while attempting to recover the body of someone killed in an earlier attack. Since the war began following the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attacks, at least 73,783 Palestinians have been killed and 174,738 wounded, according to the health ministry. An independent UN inquiry found in 2026 that Israel had continued to commit genocide by deliberately targeting Palestinian children in Gaza.

On Wednesday, Israel's defence minister, Israel Katz, stated that it was only a matter of time before Israel resumed full-scale war and moved to force out Gaza's Palestinian population. He noted that 70% of Gaza had already been emptied during the offensive launched after October 7, and that the military was prepared "to finish the job so that we can also implement the migration plan." These words were spoken as rescue workers were still digging through rubble with their bare hands, listening for the voices of children trapped beneath the concrete.