The Israeli military has killed at least 25 members of the same family in the Sabra neighbourhood of Gaza City as it ramps up strikes across the besieged enclave.

A group of homes were bombed in the early hours of Sunday by Israeli warplanes in the Sabra neighbourhood, where Israeli tanks began advancing in late August as part of a plan to destroy and seize the area.

At least 17 people have been rescued in the aftermath of the strike, and rescue work was ongoing as people and emergency responders dug with their hands and family members at the scene said they feared as many as 50 people were trapped under the rubble.

The Palestinian family made an urgent appeal for help to try to free others still trapped. Family members at the scene said they could still hear voices from the rubble.

“I appeal to the whole world: Please lend us a helping hand,” one family member said. “Our relatives are buried alive. We keep hearing their screams from under the rubble, but we cannot reach them.”

He said Israeli drones were firing on rescuers working in the rubble.

“Every time we try to reach them, the Israeli drones open fire on us. For every five men making an attempt, four are killed, and only one survives.”

Footage circulating online showed casualties being rushed away in a small vehicle surrounded by people. The video below shows a mother crying out that she lost “all of my children” in the Israeli attack in the Sabra neighbourhood, located south of Gaza City.

Intensive Israeli air strikes also targeted the Shati refugee camp, in western Gaza City, and the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood, southwest of Gaza City.

Raids were also reported on the Laval Tower in the Nasr district and on a house next to the tower.

Seven Palestinians, including four children, were killed in another Israeli air raid in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, an emergency source told Al Jazeera. The attack reportedly hit near a clinic operated by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

According to medical sources cited by the Wafa news agency, Israeli attacks in Gaza have killed at least 68 people since dawn on Sunday.

The Ministry of Health in Gaza reported on Saturday afternoon that at least 65,283 people have been killed and 166,575 others wounded by the Israeli army since the start of the war in October 2023.

It said at least four more deaths due to Israeli-induced starvation and famine were recorded over the past day, bringing the total death toll to 440 people, including 147 children.

More buildings were blown up by the Israeli military on Sunday as it tries to forcibly displace hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and seize Gaza City despite international criticism and opposition from the families of captives held in the enclave.

Mourners react as a relative embraces body bags, during the funeral for members of the Abu Amsha family, who were killed in an Israeli strike on a house on Saturday, according to medics, at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, September 21, 2025 [Ebrahim Hajjaj/Reuters]

Many Palestinians are refusing to step outside where they are sheltering since nowhere is safe due to drone strikes and remotely controlled explosive robots planted inside displacement camps and roads, said Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud from the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.

“As of now, people’s movement has been very limited by the use of these explosives. The air is still thick with smoke,” he said.

The Israeli military estimates that more than 450,000 people have been forcibly displaced from Gaza City since the start of September. Gaza authorities put the number at under 300,000 people, saying about 900,000 remain.

The Israeli military said on Sunday that three divisions are leading a ground invasion in Gaza City and northern Gaza, with another division operating in Khan Younis in the south. It claimed that its soldiers killed “many terrorists who were on their way to carry out terror plots” over the past 24 hours.

Pope Leo spoke out against the forced displacement of civilians in Gaza on Sunday, saying, “Together with the pastors of the churches in the Holy Land, I repeat that there is no future based on violence, forced exile, and revenge.”

As the catastrophic situation in Gaza grows more dire, Britain, Canada, Australia, and Portugal officially recognised Palestinian statehood two days before the start of the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), where Palestinian sovereignty after decades of occupation and apartheid by Israel will be in focus.

The Palestinian Authority’s Foreign Minister Varsen Aghabekian Shahin welcomed the recognition and described Israel’s actions as “systematic assault on the very fabric of humanity, designed to erase the Palestinian people’s existence, culture and future”. (Al Jazeera)

• At least 25 members of the same family were killed when Israeli warplanes bombed a cluster of homes in Gaza City’s Sabra neighbourhood on 21 September, 2025