At least 20 killed and dozens missing after war-damaged Gaza building collapses

At least 21 people have been killed, including eight children, after a war-damaged building collapsed in the Gaza Strip overnight, rescuers and medics say.

Witnesses told the BBC that the six-storey building in Gaza City's Tal al-Hawa area had been left tilting dangerously to one side after an Israeli strike more than a year ago. Displaced families had lived inside because they were desperate, they said.

UN and Egyptian teams joined the search for survivors, which was slow due to a lack of equipment. Initially, rescuers from the Hamas-run Civil Defence agency had to use their bare hands.

On Wednesday afternoon, they said they had ended the operation after taking 45 injured people to hospitals.

Sherif, whose sister was killed, said: "They couldn't find a tent or somewhere to live.

"This was the last place they could turn to, despite the danger. They were aware that it would likely end in tragedy. A lack of resources drove them towards certain death."

A woman living in a tent nearby, Umm Mohammed Bakrun, said she had been talking to her son when the building collapsed suddenly in the early hours of Wednesday.

"It felt like an earthquake. There was a loud sound and I couldn't stand up. Stones rained down on us and when I looked outside I saw a lot of dust," she told the BBC. "Within minutes, there were screams everywhere."

Another witness, Mansour Abu Mohammed, said the building collapsed "in a few seconds".

"Every day, a stone or a few stones would fall from it, but the people inside couldn't find anywhere else to live. I used to live next door to it and you could see that it was tilting to one side."

Satellite imagery shows that the area around the building was targeted in the early weeks of the war, while damage to the building itself first became evident in 2024.

The head of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Gaza office, Alessandro Mrakic, told reporters at the scene on Wednesday morning that "the situation... is tragic because we don't have the equipment and machinery that is needed".

He also warned that approximately 400 other war-damaged buildings across Gaza were at imminent risk of collapse, particularly as winter approaches.

"We need support, most importantly with machinery, equipment, among others. Our colleagues here don't have [engine] oil and spare parts to continue to work with all the equipment that is still in Gaza."