'We pulled the children out in pieces': Israel pummels Gaza City

Overnight bombing reduced a residential block in the north of the city to mounds of rubble. One man squeezed his head and hand beneath a concrete slab in a desperate search for survivors.

"There were about 50 people inside, including women and children. I don't know why they bombed it," said Abu Abd Zaqout, adding it had housed his uncle's family.

"Why kill children sleeping safely like that, turning them into body parts?" he added.

"We pulled the children out in pieces."

In a statement, the Zaqout family said 23 of its members were killed in the strike on their home.

A sea of destruction surrounded the site of the strike, with those aiding the rescue effort dwarfed by mounds of crushed concrete and metal. 

One family attempted to load belongings into a car parked on a barely usable debris-strewn road nearby. 

"At night they bombed an entire quarter, three houses and the neighbouring houses," said Gaza City resident Mohammed al-Bardawil.

"All of (the dead) are children, elderly people and women. They are all under the rubble."

Gaza's civil defence agency -- a rescue force operating under Hamas authority -- said at least 12 bodies had been recovered after more than eight hours of search operations at the site. 

When contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said it would try to look into the report. 

Media restrictions in the territory and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the details and tolls provided by the civil defence agency or the Israeli military.

- 'No humanity left' -

Israel on Tuesday said it had launched its long-anticipated ground assault on Gaza City, where it said its troops were moving deeper into the centre.

The United Nations recently estimated nearly one million people lived in Gaza City and its surroundings, from where Israel has repeatedly warned people to evacuate southwards.

An Israeli military official estimated more than 350,000 people had fled the city ahead of the ground offensive. 

Ibrahim Al-Besheiti, a 35-year-old resident of Gaza City's Al-Sabra neighbourhood told AFP the situation was "already catastrophic".

"The sound of aircraft never stops -- quadcopters and warplanes constantly fill the sky. We're extremely afraid, and many people around us have already fled. We don't know what will happen to us," he said.

Besheiti said the overnight bombing near his house was so intense that the pressure shattered its windows and blew doors off their frames.

"We heard screaming from under the rubble," he said.

"This repeated scene terrifies us and proves to us that there's no humanity left in this world."

In the northern Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, 38-year-old Maysa Abu Jamaa said gunfire from military vehicles, drone fire and artillery shelling were constant.

A huge overnight explosion jolted her family awake, she said, adding her children were "terrified, screaming and crying in fear".

"We live in constant darkness and see no way out."

The civil defence agency said Israeli forces had killed at least 37 people since dawn across the Palestinian territory, where its war aimed at crushing Hamas has lasted nearly two years.

The October 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.

Israel's retaliatory campaign in Gaza has killed at least 64,964 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the territory's health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.

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