Massive casualties feared as Israeli jets hit house sheltering nearly 100 Palestinians

Massive casualties were feared as Israeli warplanes hit a house sheltering nearly 100 Palestinians in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Civil Defense Service said on Tuesday.

In a statement, Gaza Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Basal said its teams have so far recovered eight bodies from the Karaja family building, and rescued dozens of others, mostly women and children.

He told Anadolu that the building was sheltering dozens of displaced people, and still, people are missing under the rubble.

The spokesman added that efforts continue by rescue teams to recover trapped people from the struck building.

Earlier, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa cited medical sources that said 14 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli airstrike on a three-story building of the Karaja family in the Nuseirat refugee camp.

Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip following Palestinian resistance group Hamas’ cross-border attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed about 1,200 people.

Nearly 35,100 Palestinians, most of them women and children, have since been killed, and over 78,800 others injured, according to Palestinian health authorities.

Seven months into the conflict, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). An interim ruling in January said it is “plausible” that Tel Aviv is committing genocide in Gaza, ordering it to stop such acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.