Gaza authorities say 15 killed in Israeli strike on Bureij refugee camp

Gazan authorities say 15 people have been killed in an Israeli air strike on the Bureij refugee camp, marking the third bombing of a camp in as many days.

A spokesperson for Gaza Civil Defence said the strike on Thursday in central Gaza hit a residential building, and residents reported scores of people trapped beneath the rubble.

“My family and I were sitting, and all of a sudden, we heard a huge explosive. Everything was flying around us. We couldn’t see anything but dust and smoke. It was massive. The whole area is turned upside down … all in a second,” a survivor told Al Jazeera.

“That was my home [pointing to rubble]. Now it is totally in ruins. I do not know what to say. We are helpless.”

Bureij is a comparatively small refugee camp situated in the middle of the Gaza Strip. It is home to about 46,000 Palestinian refugees who are registered with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

Over the past several days, Israel has carried out numerous strikes on refugee camps inside Gaza, often some of the most densely populated areas of the besieged enclave.Like many such camps in Gaza, it was originally built for Palestinian refugees from villages depopulated by Zionist forces during the founding of Israel in 1948, from which Palestinians were then barred from returning. The refugees who settled in Bureij mostly came from Palestinian towns east of Gaza.