GAZA CITY — A fire that swept through a family home in the northern Gaza Strip late Thursday killed at least 21 people, including children, authorities said.
At least 21 people killed in Gaza fire, officials say
Officials said the fire appeared to be an accident, based on preliminary investigations.
“Police forces, civil defense and forensic teams are still continuing their follow-up and investigations into this painful incident,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
The ministry also said that authorities found a large gasoline cache in the home. Palestinians in Gaza often rely on diesel-run generators for electricity because of severe power shortages in the tiny enclave. A joint Israeli-Egyptian blockade, as well as political divisions between local Hamas authorities and the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank, have hobbled Gaza’s only power plant.
One witness, a next-door neighbor, said that the fire raged for more than an hour and a half and that there were many children in the building at the time. The first firefighters on the scene did not have properly equipped hoses and trucks, he said.
Nearly half of Gaza’s two million residents are under 18 years old, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.
The head of the U.N. Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process said in a statement Thursday that he felt “great sorrow” hearing the tragic news. “I extend my deepest condolences to the families, relatives and friends of those who perished in the accident; the government and the Palestinian people,” Tor Winsland said.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas declared Friday a public day of mourning in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
“We offer our sincerest condolences for the loss of innocent life in the fire in the Gaza Strip on Thursday,” the U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs in Jerusalem said on Twitter. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the families who have been touched by this tragedy.”
Many Gazans are still rebuilding homes and key infrastructure destroyed during the May 2021 war with Israel. A three day-conflict this summer between Israel and another Gaza-based militant group, Islamic Jihad, left 44 Palestinians dead.
The Interior Ministry in Gaza said Thursday that there were no injuries from the blaze, which did not spread beyond the third-floor apartment.
But a senior Palestinian official in the West Bank, Hussein al-Sheikh, called on Israel to open the main crossing with Gaza so that injured victims could travel to the West Bank or Jerusalem for medical care.
“We called on the #Israeli side to open the Erez crossing to transport dangerous cases in order to treat them outside the #Gaza Strip if necessary,” he said on Twitter.
The Israeli Defense Ministry unit that controls the Erez Crossing, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Berger reported from Washington.
Source: WP
