An Israeli military strike has murdered 12 Palestinians in a house in Gaza City early on Saturday, bringing the total death toll from strikes across Gaza to 62 in the past 24 hours, Palestinian medics said.
The dawn air strike targeted the home of al-Ghoula family in Gaza City, destroying the building and killing 11 people, seven of them children.
‘The home, which housed several displaced people, was completely destroyed,’ said civil defence spokesman Mahmoud Bassal.
‘It was a two-storey building, and several people are still under the rubble,’ he added, noting that Israeli drones had ‘also fired on ambulance staff’.
Images from the scene showed people searching for survivors trapped under the smoking rubble of the house in Shujaiya in eastern Gaza City, while bodies were lined up on the ground, covered in white sheets.
‘A huge explosion woke us up. Everything was shaking,’ witness Ahmed Mussa told AFP.
‘I was surprised to see that the strike was on the house of our neighbours, the al-Ghoul family. It was home to children and women. There wasn’t anyone wanted or who posed a threat.’
Elsewhere, the civil defence agency said five security officers tasked with accompanying aid convoys were killed when an Israeli strike targeted their car in the southern city of Khan Younis.
Bassal accused Israel of having ‘deliberately targeted’ them to ‘affect the humanitarian supply chain and increase the suffering’ of the population.
In another strike in Khan Younis, three members of the same family, including a child, were killed when their home was bombed, local rescuers said.
Later on Saturday, an Israeli air strike killed three people travelling in a car east of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, medics said.
The Israeli military has significantly intensified its operations in the Gaza Strip in recent days, as renewed international efforts aim to secure a ceasefire agreement before US President-elect Donald Trump takes office on 20 January.