When Abu Anas Al-Hadidi heard the bombs fall on Shati refugee camp in Gaza, he immediately feared for his nephews.

He arrived at a scene of abject horror, where people were digging into the rubble with tools and their bare hands as they desperately tried to retrieve people from the wreckage.

The house was destroyed, and all four of Mr Hadidi’s nephews had been killed: Suhayb, Yehya, Abdel Rahman and Osama, who was just six years old.

“I saw a massacre, I was shocked,” Mr Hadidi said.

“The dead were pulled from one room out of the rubble, it seems they had been staying together in the same room.”

As Mr Hadidi went to the morgue to identify the bodies, his brother stayed behind to help with the rescue efforts.

Five other members of the Abu Hatab family, who were also in the house, had been killed, bringing the death toll of the extended family to nine. Alaa Abu Hatab, the house’s owner, was still missing as of last night.

However, there was one survivor: five-month-old Omar al-Hadidi, who was found in his dead mother’s arms.

Israel says that the camp was hit during air strikes on several high-ranking Hamas officials and their supplies, claiming that the Islamist group had used families in the area as “human shields”.

The Israeli military claims it takes care to avoid civilian casualties, such as sending advance warnings of its attacks. Referring to his relatives, Mr Hadidi said: “They did not receive any warning from the Israeli side.”

As the conflict in Gaza enters its second week, Israel has launched hundreds of air and artillery strikes on what it says are Hamas targets, such as rocket launchers and tunnels.

The Israel Defence Forces [IDF] has been phoning residents in targeted buildings to allow time for them to flee, while it also carries out “roof-knock” attacks, where a small bomb or object is dropped on a building to forewarn its residents. However, as the death toll on the Palestinian side rose to 200 last night, including 50 children, the IDF is increasingly facing questions over its conduct during strikes on civilian areas.

The British government urged Israel yesterday to ensure that its attacks in Gaza were “proportionate”, adding that it was “deeply concerned” by United Nations reports that 23 schools and 500 homes had been destroyed.

A spokesman for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was also concerned by an Israeli strike on a building which contained the offices of the US news agency Associated Press and the broadcaster Al-Jazeera, and he was “urgently seeking more information” on the attack.

In addition to the strike that levelled houses in Shati, Israeli forces destroyed three residential buildings in Gaza City on Sunday, in what proved to be the deadliest day of the conflict so far.

The IDF said that it was targeting underground Hamas tunnels in the area and that their destruction led to the foundation collapsing beneath the residential buildings.

This led to the deaths of 42 Palestinians, including 10 children, with many others trapped under the rubble.

Rescue workers were intermittently turning off diggers so they could be guided by the screams of people trapped underground.

“My family and I closed our ears and laid on the ground. The house shook rapidly. When it was over, we didn’t believe we were still alive,” said Omar Saleh, a 20-year-old survivor of the attack.

“We smelled smoke and saw black fumes and fires.

“I called my friend, Abdel Hamid Elkolak, who lives there to check on him but alas I knew he was gone forever.”

Mr Elkolak was later confirmed as being among the victims of the attack.

As the conflict continued yesterday, Israel said it had killed a senior commander of Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian militant group, and had also struck a “submergible vehicle” which it said Hamas was using to mount an attack.

In Gaza, Hamas continued to launch rockets at Israel, though its fire was mainly concentrated on border towns such as Ashqelon, rather than Tel Aviv.

Israeli officials also said that they were facing a combined assault by Hamas of both drones and rockets, which the Iron Dome air defence system was engaging simultaneously.

Last night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “We are going to continue hitting targets in Gaza. We will continue to act as much as needed to restore calm.”

Gaza City’s mayor, Yahya Sarraj, said the strikes had caused extensive damage to roads and other infrastructure. He said water supplies to hundreds of households were disrupted.

“We are trying hard to provide water, but the situation remains difficult,” he said. 

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2021]