Gaza Herald — At least 21 Palestinians were killed when a war-damaged residential building collapsed over its residents in western Gaza City early Wednesday, turning a structure that families had been living in out of necessity into a deadly trap.
The collapse of the al-Saada building came after months of visible deterioration. Residents said pieces of walls and stone had repeatedly fallen from the structure, while families living nearby had grown accustomed to the possibility that it could eventually give way.
But for many of those inside, leaving was not a realistic option.
“People left, but those who stayed had nowhere to go,” said Mansour Bakroun, 56, who lived near the building. “They had no other place.”
The disaster has exposed a broader danger facing Palestinians across Gaza: families displaced by the war are increasingly forced to live in or around buildings that have been damaged, weakened or left unsafe, while reconstruction remains severely constrained.
A building everyone feared
Hayat al-Ajlah, 37, was inside the building with her four children when it collapsed.
She had been displaced with her family from Gaza City’s Shujayea neighborhood to Deir el-Balah during an earlier phase of Israel’s war on Gaza. About two months ago, the family returned to Gaza City and moved into an empty apartment on the third floor of the damaged building.
The apartment was severely damaged, Hayat said, but her family wanted to leave the tent where they had been living.
Her father had already been worried.
“My mother was afraid of the building, and my father was planning to find another place,” she said.
The family never got the chance.
Hayat said she woke during the night to check her phone when she heard what sounded like something cracking beneath them.
“Suddenly, I heard a sound like something cracking. It felt like something was falling from underneath us.”
Seconds later, the building collapsed.
Trapped beneath the rubble, Hayat heard relatives calling for help. Her 74-year-old father was searching for her 12-year-old son, Yasser, before his voice disappeared.
Hayat began screaming for her children.
Neighbors and Palestinian Civil Defence workers spent nearly an hour trying to reach those trapped beneath the concrete. Hayat and her four children were eventually rescued, but her eight-year-old daughter, Dalia, was taken to hospital with a serious head injury.
Nine members of Hayat’s extended family were killed, she said, including her parents, four siblings and three nephews and nieces.
The family had also been preparing for a wedding scheduled for the following week.
“We never expected this tragedy. The whole family is either dead or injured,” Hayat said.
Living beside the possibility of collapse
For residents in the area, the collapse was horrifying but not entirely unexpected.
Bakroun said the building had been visibly damaged since the beginning of the war.
“Every day, something would fall from it … a piece of a wall, a stone,” he said.
Another resident, Huzaifa Mohammed, said he had repeatedly feared that the damaged structures around him would collapse.
“Every day, I imagine these buildings collapsing,” he said. “Every day, pieces of stone and walls are falling, and people ask: Where should we go?”
That question has become central to life for displaced Palestinians across Gaza.
Families have been repeatedly uprooted by the war, while many continue to live in tents or temporary shelters. Others have returned to damaged homes or occupied buildings because they have few alternatives.
For residents like Huzaifa, the danger is therefore not simply the condition of one building. It is the absence of somewhere else to go.
“When I see a little girl brought out with her head crushed, I ask myself: What if this were my daughter or my son?” he said.
“How long are we going to keep living like this?”
Rescue teams fighting the rubble with limited tools
The collapse also underscored the severe limitations facing Palestinian Civil Defence crews attempting to rescue people from destroyed buildings.
Teams worked for hours to search the rubble and reach those trapped beneath the concrete, but the operation was slowed by shortages of heavy machinery and other essential equipment.
The lack of equipment has become a major obstacle to rescue and recovery operations across Gaza, where years of destruction have left vast amounts of concrete and debris and severely damaged the infrastructure needed to clear it.
For the families waiting outside al-Shifa Hospital, every delay meant more uncertainty.
Relatives gathered there as rescue crews continued searching for victims and survivors.
Among them was Umm Mahmoud Saada, a woman in her 70s waiting for news of her son Mahmoud, 38, his wife and their seven children.
None survived.
Mahmoud had been displaced in southern Gaza before returning to Gaza City about a month ago. His mother said he had been living in a tent in the street and was struggling financially.
“A relative showed him this place, so he settled there temporarily,” she said. “We did not know it would be his end.”
She had seen her son only the day before.
“Yesterday, he visited me. We prayed the noon prayer together, ate together and then he left,” she said.
“All our loved ones are leaving us, and our hearts are breaking day after day. Why is all this happening to us?”
A crisis beyond one building
The al-Saada collapse has left families mourning those killed and waiting for the recovery of those still missing. But residents say the danger will not end with this building.
Across Gaza, Palestinians are living among structures damaged by war while facing displacement, inadequate shelter and restrictions that have made rebuilding and repairing homes extremely difficult.
The result is a deadly contradiction: buildings are unsafe, but for many families, remaining inside them can still seem safer than living in a tent or on the street.
Huzaifa said residents have watched the deterioration around them for years.
“People ask: Where should we go?” he said.
His question remains unanswered for families who have already survived repeated displacement and now face another threat from the ruins surrounding them.
“We need solutions,” Huzaifa said. “We need someone to look at our situation and ask: How much longer can this continue?”
