Rescue workers frantically searched for survivors under the rubble on Sunday as Israel’s bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip entered its seventh consecutive day.
An hour-long rain of 150 rockets pounded the territory overnight on Sunday in what a Palestinian security source said was the “most intense” shelling since the second intifada, or uprising, that began in 2000.
Emergency teams worked to pull out bodies from vast piles of smoking rubble and toppled buildings as relatives wailed in horror and grief.
Nearly half of the rockets targeted the Gaza City district of al-Wehda where residential houses, infrastructure and roads were destroyed or partially damaged.
The ministry of health confirmed 33 people were killed overnight – including Dr Ayman Abu al-Ouf, head of internal medicine at Shifa hospital – following Israeli bombardment on their homes. Five children were found alive under the debris.
“They are striking our children, children, without prior warning,” said a devastated Mohammed al-Hadidi who lost most of his family in the strike and whose five-month-old baby was also wounded in the explosion.
On the same day, Israeli forces brought down a high-rise building housing the offices of media organisations, including Al Jazeera’s bureau. As violence grows, the humanitarian situation steadily worsens with some 17,000 Palestinians fleeing their homes near the Israeli fence east of the Gaza Strip for fear of a ground offensive, the United Nations said.
“They are sheltering in schools, mosques, and other places during a global COVID-19 pandemic with limited access to water, food, hygiene and health services,” UN humanitarian official Lynn Hastings said. Al JAZEERA
