Palestinians gather in front of a building as firefighters extinguish a fire that broke out in one of the apartments in Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp.
Photo:
mahmud hams/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
A fire in a residential building in the Gaza Strip killed 21 people, the Palestinian enclave’s Interior Ministry said, in one of the deadliest incidents in the territory in recent years outside of its conflict with Israel.
The blaze erupted in a multistory building Thursday night in the crowded Jabalia refugee camp and spread fast due to a large amount of gasoline being stored there, said the ministry, which didn’t clarify how the fire started.
Videos published by local media organizations showed flames engulfing the top floor of the building and spewing from its windows as firefighters worked to prevent the blaze from spreading to nearby homes.
“Preliminary investigations showed that the storing of a large amount of benzene inside the burning house contributed to the massive escalation of the fire and the occurrence of this number of deaths,” said Iyad al-Bazim, Gaza’s Interior Ministry spokesman.
Firefighters work to prevent the blaze from spreading further.
Photo:
mahmud hams/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Due to a persistent energy crisis in Gaza, many people store gasoline and cooking gas in their homes. The enclave has been under an Israeli-Egyptian blockade since being taken over by Islamist militant group Hamas in 2007.
Hamas’s leader,
Ismail Haniyeh,
blamed the fire on the blockade, saying Israel bans rescue…
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