As drones buzzed overhead in the morning sun, Palestinians gently lifted from the rubble a blanket holding a body, the latest casualty of Israel’s relentless bombardment of Gaza City.

The devastating scene is a familiar one in the Gaza Strip’s main urban hub, where Israel has carried out intensifying strikes in the runup to the ground assault it has launched.

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.

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