Israeli forces bombed a home in Al-Sabra, Gaza City, killing at least 15 Palestinians—mostly children—amid collapsing hospitals, mass displacement, and urgent calls for a ceasefire.
Israeli occupation forces committed a massacre in the Al-Sabra neighborhood in central Gaza City on Saturday, killing at least 15 Palestinians, including six children, and injuring more than 50 others in a direct missile strike on a residential home, according to Gaza Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basal.
Basal told Al-Jazeera that two Israeli missiles leveled the home completely, with around 85 people believed to be trapped under the rubble.
“It’s almost certain that everyone inside was killed,” he said, describing the destruction as total.
He added that rescue crews were forced to withdraw from the site due to the inability to reach the bodies, citing the lack of equipment and the continued threat of Israeli strikes.
“The scene at the site was extremely harsh,” Basal said. “What happened was a full-blown massacre.”
Several Palestinians, including children, were killed and others injured in an Israeli airstrike targeting a home in the Al-Sabra neighborhood, southern Gaza, just moments ago. pic.twitter.com/E7N9vXhlRx
— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) June 7, 2025
The injuries reported are “extremely serious,” Basal noted, stressing that Gaza’s already collapsing medical system is incapable of coping with the influx of casualties.
“We are losing many survivors due to a lack of rescue equipment,” he said, explaining that civil defense teams are relying almost entirely on human effort, as most of their vehicles and tools have been destroyed during the ongoing Israeli assault.
Basal issued an urgent plea for a humanitarian truce: “We are in dire need of a ceasefire to allow for the saving of lives and the recovery of martyrs.”
Bombardment across the Strip
The Al-Sabra attack is part of a broader escalation in Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip.
A medical source at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital told Al-Jazeera that three Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike west of Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza. Another Palestinian was killed and several others injured in a separate attack east of Deir al-Balah, in the central region.
The Civil Defense also confirmed the killing of one of its officers when an Israeli strike hit his home in the Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City.
Meanwhile, Al-Jazeera reported that several people were wounded by Israeli army fire in displacement camps west of Khan Yunis, in the south of the besieged enclave.
A Palestinian mother bids a final farewell for her child who was killed in Al Sabra neighborhood massacre in Gaza pic.twitter.com/XgupL8XvTR
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) June 7, 2025
Hospitals at Breaking Point
Hospitals across Gaza, particularly in the north, are either completely destroyed or severely damaged, according to Mohammed Abu Afash, director of medical relief in Gaza.
He told Al Jazeera that medical facilities are suffering from an “absolute shortage” of supplies, further endangering the lives of the wounded.
Dr. Marwan al-Hams, director of field hospitals in Gaza, said that the current level of destruction and suffering “exceeds all the wars and attacks the world has witnessed.”
He added that displaced Palestinians are trying to seek refuge in hospitals like Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, but the Israeli army has also targeted these locations.
“They are bombing hospitals. They are bombing all the tents of displaced people, from north to south,” al-Hams said.
He accused Israel of deliberately trying to “spoil the joy of Eid” for Palestinians through a policy of bombing and starvation and called for an immediate end to the war “so that the people of the Gaza Strip can live.”
I live in a neighborhood called Al-Sabra, in Gaza City. Two missiles just fell like a belt of fire. I immediately said, “Allah, have mercy on us.”
I rushed to the scene, the martyrs were nothing but minced pieces of flesh. More than 15 martyrs had been turned into scattered body…— Omar Hamad | عُـمَـرْ 𓂆 (@OmarHamadD) June 7, 2025
In a statement, the Ministry of Health in Gaza urged international institutions to provide a safe humanitarian corridor for the transport of patients and the wounded to Al Amal Hospital in Khan Yunis. The Ministry said that access to the hospital has become nearly impossible after Israeli forces designated the area around it as a dangerous combat zone.
As rescue operations continue under fire and hospitals struggle to function, the humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip continues to deepen. Calls for a ceasefire and urgent international intervention are growing louder as the death toll climbs and civilian infrastructure collapses under the weight of continued Israeli bombardment.
(PC, AJA)
Not that long ago, and in relation to the Ukraine-Russia war, I said that armed forces that target civilians inste4ad of legitimate military targets, are on the losing side. This can be verified from Vietnam, for example, or Afghanistan, or from the horrors in civil wars in Africa. It’s equally true of Israel targeting Palestinians in Gaza. By targeting civilians, they have admitted they are not a military any more, merely an einsatzgruppe, a pogrom machine, and they have no other use. They are not a Defense Force, so much as a inDefensible Farce.