Israeli nighttime airstrikes kill 40 people in Gaza, hospitals say

Hospitals in the central Gaza Strip reported that 40 people were killed in two Israeli airstrikes overnight.

Al Aqsa hospital said it had received 29 bodies, nine of which were children, while Al Awda hospital said it had received 11 bodies after a second attack.

This occurred between 1 am and 2:45 am this Tuesday (14), local time, according to witnesses.

Rescuers were carrying out operations to find bodies under the rubble of a four-story building in Nuseirat that was destroyed in the first attack. Witnesses highlighted that dozens of people were sheltering in the courtyard of this building.

A video obtained by CNN shows the injured and dead being taken to Al Aqsa Martyrs' Hospital, while another file shows the bodies of several children being pulled from the wreckage.

Desperate family members surround the piles of rubble, waiting to see if anyone is rescued alive. However, people at the site also struggled with a lack of adequate equipment to remove the material.

A CNN contacted the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), but has not received any response so far.

Some of the people killed had recently arrived from the city of Rafah, according to people present at the scene.

A witness, Ashraf Al Jalees, told the CNN at the scene: “I swear these are innocent civilians. They are all buried underground, including children. There are seven girls here. What fault were they?”

He noted that he set up a tent for a friend, Hassan Obeid, who he stressed had “no affiliation with Hamas or anyone else.”

While calling for Obeid, Al Jalees added: “He stayed to sleep here tonight, and the house collapsed on all of them… More than 50 people are under it, I swear to God they are all innocent civilians. God will question me one day if I’m lying.”

Another man, Hamdan Karaja, highlighted CNN: “My children, both girls and boys, are under the rubble. My wife too.”

Karaja said she had seven children. He also commented that his father's body was recovered.

“We have more than 100 displaced people, some of them part of families of 20 people. They are all trapped under the rubble. We were shot at while we were sleeping, without any prior warning,” he alleged.

“We also moved people’s tents in the courtyard. We have 10 martyrs here and 20 there,” she added.

Rami Al Aida, Civil Defense spokesman in central Gaza, said authorities were “operating in extremely challenging conditions due to a lack of fuel and equipment.”

“We hope to find people alive. We call on all international organizations to provide Civil Defense with the necessary tools, excavators and fuel,” he added.

Al Aida agreed with reports from others at the scene that dozens of people were still under the rubble. “There are more than four families trapped under the rubble, in addition to displaced families seeking shelter in and around the building. There are more than 100 people,” she warned.

A girl, who identified herself as Sama Alousha, said she heard an explosion at around 1am.

“We all panicked and came to see what happened. I saw my friend's house completely destroyed. We were unable to rescue anyone. I have five friends stuck in this place,” he said.

An unidentified man highlighted that he and his family had been displaced several times within Palestinian territory.

“We were displaced from Shajaiya. We moved to Khan Younis and then to Rafah, and from Rafah we came here. My brother rented a house here and stayed there with his family,” he informed.

“Suddenly, I received a call that the place where my brother was staying had been hit. There are no tools to recover them. They are a family of six, all innocent civilians. My brother, his wife and four children,” he noted.

He then called out the names of his brother's family, but there was no response.

A woman who was at the scene, Um Mahmoud, told the CNN: “My brother arrived from Rafah three days ago after being forcibly displaced and now we don’t know his whereabouts. He, along with his wife and five children, has no connections with anyone.”

“He is simply a displaced person who came from Rafah and was still looking for a place to stay in Deir el Balah”, he pointed out.

“His name was on the list of those who were supposed to leave Gaza through the Rafah border, but fate intervened,” she added.

A man named Salah Abu Jarada reported that his brother also came from the Rafah region. “They were hit, with three floors collapsing on top of them. They have not been rescued yet,” he said.

A second attack occurred at the UNRWA school in Nuseirat about two hours after the first, according to witnesses.

Ismail Abu Ghosheh said: “Everything was burned and seven people were killed.”

Another man at the school, Najah Abu Daher, stressed: “There is no safe place to go. They follow us wherever we go. My son was killed, along with three of my relatives. They attacked us in the dead of night, causing children to run everywhere and glass to break.”