Ten people, including six children, were reportedly killed in an Israeli airstrike while they were waiting to fill water containers in central Gaza on Sunday, according to emergency service officials.
Eyewitnesses claimed a drone fired a missile at a crowd queuing beside a water tanker in the center of the al-Nuseirat refugee camp. Unverified footage circulated online showed bloodied children, lifeless bodies, and scenes of chaos and distress.
Residents rushed to help, transporting the wounded in private cars and on donkey carts.
The incident occurred amid an intensification of Israeli airstrikes across the Gaza Strip. A spokesperson for Gaza’s Civil Defense Agency stated that 19 additional Palestinians were killed on Sunday in three separate airstrikes on residential buildings in central Gaza and Gaza City.
Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza began in response to Hamas’s cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, which killed around 1,200 people and resulted in 251 hostages being taken.
Since then, at least 57,882 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
The vast majority of Gaza’s population has been displaced multiple times. Over 90% of homes have been damaged or destroyed. Basic infrastructure—such as healthcare, water, sanitation, and hygiene systems—has collapsed, while food, fuel, medicine, and shelter remain critically scarce.
This week, for the first time in 130 days, 75,000 litres of fuel were allowed into Gaza—an amount the United Nations says is far below what is needed to sustain daily life and humanitarian operations.
Nine UN agencies warned on Saturday that the fuel crisis had reached “critical levels,” threatening to shut down hospitals, water and sanitation systems, and bakeries.
“Hospitals are already going dark; maternity, neonatal, and intensive care units are failing; and ambulances can no longer operate,” the UN reported.
