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It was the night that the bomb attack began to increase.
Salah Jundia, his father and brothers spent time in their home in Shujaiyya, just east of Gaza City, and tried to work out what to do.
It was too risky for them to leave at night. There were also many of them. Extended family living over four floors. They decided that they would wait until after dawn prayers.
The explosion tore through the building just before 5am and collapsed one floor on the next.
The remains of Salah Jundia’s home in Shujaiyya, just east of Gaza City
Wrong Jundia
Jundia says he survived because pieces of bedroom furniture fell on top of him.
Then he searched for his father and brothers.
“I found that one of them asked for help. I removed the debris covering him with my hands. Then I saw another brother covered in ruins, but he was dead, “he told Sky News.
Jundia added: “My father was also dead. My other brother was also dead. We took them out and that’s when I saw that the whole building had collapsed.”
Over the next few hours, they struggled to save who they could.
One of the child victims of the attack on the house near the city of Gaza
Another one of child victims of the attack
An aunt and uncle and one of their children, Shaimaa. Uncle Imad and his son Mohammad. The bodies of Montasir and Mustaf.
Jundia says he could hear help for help, but they came from deep into the rubble and were impossible to reach.
The rescue teams on the site – civil defense they are called – did not have the set to clean through three floors of 500 square meters, 30 cm plates concrete.
Rescuers drill to reach the people trapped under the rubble
Attempts to free those trapped under the rubble near the Gaza city
In the afternoon, Jundia says Israel’s army (IDF) told rescue teams to leave as they would resume their bombing.
Jundia buried the bodies he managed to move out, but he knew that fifteen of his family members, twelve of their children, were still in the rubble and still cry for help.
He made a desperate video appeal and begged the Red Cross and Arab countries to push Israel to access the site. It has been picked up on some social media accounts.
Israel will not allow heavy equipment in Gaza. No diggers or bulldozers or the fuel or generators to drive it.
They say it will fall into Hamas’ hands.
This was an important point during the ceasefire and this is a major problem now, as the bombing continues, given that hundreds, if not thousands of civilians, can survive if there was the equipment to withdraw.
Members of Salah Jundia’s family left alive after the attack
Salah Jundia and his surviving family
The civil defense that tried to reach the Jundia family for the next few days was discontinued because the IDF was in the area. A family friend tried himself and was killed.
The footage that our camera teams shot in Shujaiyya over the past two weeks shows how civil defensive teams struggle to save those who are trapped and injured with the most rudimentary equipment – plastering, sled, ropes and small drills.
“The now siege prevents the equipment of the civil defense from entering,” says one.
They added: “So it takes much longer to respond to these events. Time is a factor to get these people out. So we immediately call for the necessary equipment to be allowed to use civil defense.”
The IDF says they are investigating the circumstances surrounding the Jundia family as a result of our inquiries.
Regarding the access of heavy equipment to Gaza, they say they are working closely with international aid organizations to enable the delivery of humanitarian activities in accordance with international law.
The last contact Jundia had under the rubble was a phone call from his uncle Ziad, three days after the strike.
“The line was open for 25 seconds when it was dead. We don’t know what happened. We tried to call, but there was no answer, ‘he says.
He and his family were displaced several times before returning to Shujaiyya – to Rafah in the south, then Khan Younis and Deir Al -Balah.
Along the way, Jundia lost one brother and a cousin to Israeli bombs.
Read more:
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“We were happy and the whole family came back. We returned to our house. It was damaged, but we improvised and we lived in it. We have nothing to do with the resistance. We are not interested in wars. But we were seriously injured,” he says.
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