Gaza's civil defence agency reported that an Israeli air strike in the early hours of Saturday resulted in the death of 15 members of a Palestinian family, including nine children and three women. The strike targeted the Ajlah family's home in the Al Zawaida neighborhood of central Gaza, according to civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal in an interview with AFP. The Israeli military has yet to provide a comment.
Bassal detailed that the Israeli strike on the Ajlah family's residence and their warehouse in Al-Zawaida led to 15 fatalities. He provided a list of the deceased, which included nine children and three women. A witness, Ahmed Abu al-Ghoul, recounted to AFP that the strike occurred just after midnight, with three rockets directly hitting the house as rescuers were extracting bodies from the rubble of the destroyed home.
AFPTV footage captured after dawn showed rescuers sifting through piles of collapsed concrete blocks in search of bodies. The ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, which began over ten months ago, has devastated large areas of Gaza. The war erupted following Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7, which led to the deaths of 1,198 individuals, predominantly civilians, as per an AFP tally using official Israeli data. During the attack, militants also captured 251 people, with 111 still held in Gaza, including 39 whom the Israeli military claims are deceased.
Israel's military response has resulted in at least 40,005 deaths in Gaza, according to the health ministry of the Hamas-controlled territory, which does not differentiate between civilian and militant casualties.
