Gaza: 26 killed, 59 missing as Israeli air strike levels residential building

Gaza's civil defence said 26 people, including children, werekilled on Sunday and at least 59 were missing after an Israeli airstrike hit a building inthe Palestinian territory's north.

Following the strike early Sunday, 26 bodies were pulled from the rubble of the five-storey residential building in Beit Lahia, "including children and women", civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.

He added that at least 59 people were still trapped under the debris.

AFP images showed men covered in dust scrambling to reach people under the rubble, while some of the bodies were taken away on a donkey-pulled cart.

Other AFP images showed the flattened building with broken concrete and twisted metal sticking out from the ruins as more bodies covered in blankets lay nearby.

Hamas, which runs the territory, accused Israel of committing a "massacre" which it said was "a continuation of the genocidal war and revenge against unarmed civilians".

Earlier on Sunday, Gaza's civil defence said other Israeli strikes killed at least 20 people, including four women and three children, across the war-torn territory.

Hamas-run Gaza's health ministry on Sunday said the overall death toll in more than 13 months of war had reached 43,846.

The majority of the dead are civilians, according to ministry figures, which the United Nations considers reliable.

Hamas's October 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,206 Israeli people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

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