The Israeli military has bombed a warehouse sheltering displaced Palestinians in the az-Zawayda area of central Gaza, killing 15 members of one family, including nine children.
The civil defence spokesman in Gaza, Mahmoud Basal, said on Saturday that 15 people killed in the overnight attack were members of the al-Ejlah family, with three women among the dead. The total death toll from the attack was 16.
Reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum said three Israeli missiles hit the warehouse, located a few kilometres south of the Nuseirat refugee camp.
“A massive fire broke out, burning everything in the warehouse as children were torn to pieces. Rescue efforts are still continuing to try to recover more bodies,” he said.
“There is a great level of frustration and grief. The bodies are now being lined up at Al-Aqsa Hospital’s morgue as the family gets ready to bury them.”
The attack killed the family’s patriarch, Sami, along with his wife, mother and all of his children, according to Abdalhadi al-Ejlah, a cousin of the victims.
Al-Ejlah told Al Jazeera from Stockholm, Sweden, that Sami was an “honourable man” who ran a small business in the frozen meat industry and was active in charitable efforts, stressing that the family was not involved in politics.
He added that the family had fled Gaza City to the az-Zawayda warehouse, which Sami owned and used for his business.
“We are talking [about] literally a gradual genocide, a slow motion genocide, not only by killing, but also using other tools … including scarcity of food,” al-Ejlah said of the overall situation in Gaza, which he described as “hell on earth”.
The attack took place after international mediators – the United States, Qatar and Egypt – wrapped up ceasefire negotiations in Doha on Friday that they described as “serious and constructive”.
The talks are aimed at ending the war and seeing the release of Israeli captives in Gaza for Palestinians jailed in Israel.
“What have they done to deserve this?” Ahmed Abu al-Ghoul, a local who witnessed Israel’s latest assault, told the AFP news agency.
Al Jazeera’s Abu Azzoum reported that Israel had carried out more air attacks mainly on residential houses in the enclave, with one of them killing at least seven Palestinians from the same family on the western side of the Nuseirat refugee camp.
“We are observing that the latest Israeli strikes have been wiping out whole families,” he said.
More evacuations
Israel issued yet another round of evacuation orders on Saturday, this time for neighbourhoods in central Gaza’s Maghazi refugee camp.
The Israel military’s Arabic-language spokeman, Avichay Adraee, made the announcement in a social media post, listing blocks in Maghazi, as well as several other neighbourhoods in central Gaza, from which residents should flee.
He said Palestinian group Hamas had fired rockets from the areas and Israel’s military would respond “forcefully”.
“For your own safety, move immediately to the humanitarian zone,” Adraee said.
It is the third time Israel has ordered more Gaza neighbourhoods to evacuate in as many days, displacing tens of thousands of people.
Abu Azzoum said families are fleeing to Deir el-Balah, an area that is “already overwhelmed with displaced families”. The “humanitarian zone is shrinking”, he added.
Israeli forces also ordered people to flee the vicinity of Beit Hanoon, a city in northern Gaza.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was set to travel to Israel on Saturday to continue diplomatic efforts towards reaching a ceasefire deal.
A day earlier, President Joe Biden said an agreement was in sight and warned parties in the Middle East to not undermine the negotiations.
A senior Hamas official dismissed Biden’s optimism. “To say that we are getting close to a deal is an illusion,” Sami Abu Zuhri said in a statement sent to AFP.
“We are not facing a deal or real negotiations, but rather the imposing of American diktats.”
Blinken is set to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel on Monday.
On Saturday, Gaza’s Ministry of Health said Israeli attacks had killed 69 people and injured 136 in the last 48 hours.
This brings the enclave’s casualty toll since October 7 to 40,074 killed and 92,537 injured, it said.
An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks on October 7 and more than 200 were taken captive.
