At least 23 people, including eight women and as many children, were killed in an Israeli attack on a residential building in Gaza City’s Shujaiya neighbourhood, local health authorities and Al Ahli Hospital confirmed.
The Israeli military claimed that it had targeted terror operatives while accusing Hamas of using civilian infrastructure to carry out attacks.
“The death toll from the Shujaiya massacre has risen to 23 martyrs, including eight children and eight women,” Gaza’s civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP, adding that more than 60 people were wounded.
“There are still people trapped under the rubble.”
Ayub Salim, 26, a Shujaiya resident, told the French news agency that he witnessed the attack on the four-storey block. He said the area, “overcrowded with tents, displaced people and homes”, was hit with “multiple missiles”.
“Shrapnel flew in all directions,” he said and described a “terrifying and indescribable scene”. “Dust and massive destruction filled the entire place, we couldn’t see anything, just the screams and panic of the people.” He said that people were “torn to pieces”.
“Even now, emergency crews are still transporting the dead and the injured,” he said. “It is truly a horrific massacre.”
Israel ended a nearly two-month ceasefire with Hamas on 2 March, completely halting the flow of food, fuel and medicines into the besieged Palestinian territory and resuming massive airstrikes two weeks later.
The renewed Israeli bombardment has displaced nearly 400,000 Palestinians, the United Nations said.
The health ministry, run by Hamas, reported on Wednesday that the latest wave of Israelis had killed at least 1,482 people, bringing the total number of deaths since the war began in October 2023 to 50,846.
The Israeli military claimed that it had targeted a senior Hamas operative allegedly responsible for attacks originating from the Shujaiya area, though it did not identify the individual or share additional information.
Hamas condemned the strike on Wednesday as one of the “most heinous acts of genocide”.
“The terrorist Zionist occupation army has committed a bloody massacre by bombing a densely populated residential area filled with civilians and displaced people,” the group said in a statement. “These ongoing massacres against our defenceless people – with full support from the American administration which is complicit in the aggression – represent a stain on the conscience of the international community.”
Meanwhile, French president Emmanuel Macron said France aimed to move towards recognising a Palestinian state in the coming months, with the goal of doing so by June.
In an interview aired on France-5 on Wednesday, Mr Macron said the timeline aligned with an international conference on implementing a two-state solution, which France and Saudi Arabia were set to co-host.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Washington this week to meet US president Donald Trump. While they both expressed concern for the Israeli hostages still held by Hamas, they offered few details on any potential deal to pause the fighting.
Mr Trump reiterated his desire to end the fighting but proposed a controversial postwar plan for Gaza involving population transfer, by force or voluntarily, an idea welcomed by Israel but rejected by Washington’s Middle East allies.
Mr Netanyahu, meanwhile, was under mounting pressure from his domestic political allies to continue the war in Gaza until Hamas was fully defeated.
Additional reporting by agencies.
