Lack of heavy rescue equipment into Gaza leaves hundreds to die slow deaths under rubble
It was in the evening that the bombing started to intensify.
Salah Jundia, his father and brothers huddled together in their home in Shujaiyya, just east of Gaza City, trying to work out what to do.
It was too risky for them to leave at night. There were a lot of them too. Extended family living across four storeys. They decided they would wait until after dawn prayers.
The explosion tore through the building just before 5am, collapsing one storey on to the next.
The aftermath of Israel’s bombing campaign in Shujaiyya, just east of Gaza City
Salah Jundia
Jundia says he survived because pieces of bedroom furniture fell on top of him.
Then he looked for his father and brothers.
“I found one of them calling for help. I removed the rubble covering him with my hands. Then I saw another brother covered in rubble but he was dead,” he told Sky News.
Jundia added: “My father was also dead. My other brother was also dead. We got them out and that is when I saw that the whole building had collapsed.”
Over the next few hours, they scrambled to rescue who they could.
An aunt and uncle and one of their children, Shaimaa. Uncle Imad and his son Mohammad. The bodies of Montasir and Mustaf.
One of the child victims of the attack on the home near the Gaza City
Another one of child victims of the attack
Jundia says he could hear cries for help, but they were coming from deep in the rubble and were impossible to reach.
The rescue teams on site – civil defence they are called – did not have the kit to clear through three floors of 500 square metres, 30cm slabs of concrete.
Rescuers drilling to try and reach the people trapped below the rubble
Efforts to free those trapped beneath the rubble near the Gaza City
In the afternoon, Jundia says Israel’s Defence Forces (IDF) told rescue teams to leave as they would be resuming their bombardment.
Jundia buried the bodies he had managed to pull out but he knew 15 of his family members, 12 of them children, were still somewhere inside the rubble, still crying for help.
He made a desperate video appeal, begging the Red Cross and Arab countries to pressure Israel to grant access to the site. It was picked up on a few social media accounts.
Israel won’t allow heavy equipment into Gaza. No diggers or bulldozers, nor the fuel or generators to run them.
They say it will fall into Hamas’s hands.
It was a major sticking point during the ceasefire and it is a major issue now as the bombardment continues, given the fact that hundreds if not thousands of civilians might survive if there were the equipment to extract them.
Members of Salah Jundia’s family left alive after the attack
Salah Jundia and his surviving family
Civil defence trying to get to the Jundia family home over the next few days were halted because the IDF were in the vicinity. A family friend tried himself and was killed.
The footage that our camera teams have shot in Shujaiyya over the past two weeks shows how civil defence teams struggle to save those who are trapped and injured with the most rudimentary of equipment – plastering trowels, sledgehammers, ropes and small drills.
“The tight siege stops civil defence equipment from getting in,” says one.
They added: “So we are taking much longer to respond to these events. Time is a factor in getting these people out. So we call immediately for the necessary equipment to be allowed in for the civil defence to use.”
The IDF say they are investigating the circumstances around the Jundia family as a result of our enquiries.
In relation to the access of heavy equipment into Gaza, they say they work closely with international aid organisations to enable the delivery of humanitarian activities in accordance with international law.
The last contact Jundia had from beneath the rubble was a phone call from his uncle Ziad, three days after the strike.
“The line was open for 25 seconds then it went 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 they returned home to Shujaiyya – to Rafah in the south, then Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah.
Along the way, Jundia lost one brother and a nephew to Israeli bombs.
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“We were happy and all the family came back. We went back 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 have been gravely harmed,” he says.
Thousands of troops are taking part in a joint military exercise between Russia and Belarus, as tensions with the EU run high following a Russian drone incursion into Polish airspace earlier this week.
The Zapad joint military exercise which began on Friday will involve drills in both Russia and Belarus as well as in the Baltic and Barents seas, the Russian defence ministry said.
Belarusian defence officials initially said about 13,000 troops would participate in the drill, but in May, its defence ministry said that would be cut nearly in half.
It comes just two days after Poland, with support from its NATO allies, shot down Russian drones over its airspace.
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Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Friday morning hit back at a suggestion by US President Donald Trump on Thursday that the incursion may have been a “mistake”.
He said in a post on X: “We would also wish that the drone attack on Poland was a mistake. But it wasn’t. And we know it.”
Russia said its forces had been attacking Ukraine at the time of the incursions and that it had not intended to hit any targets in Poland.
Friday also saw Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper travelling to Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv on the same day the UK announced fresh sanctions against Moscow.
Prince Harry was also in Kyiv for a surprise visit to help with the recovery of military personnel seriously injured in the three-year war with Russia.
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Prince Harry arrives in Kyiv
Ms Cooper, who was appointed foreign secretary last week, posted about her visit on X saying: “The UK’s support for Ukraine is steadfast. I am pleased to be in Kyiv on my first visit as Foreign Secretary.”
The UK’s new sanctions include bans on 70 vessels that Britain says are part of Russia’s “shadow fleet” that transports Russian oil in defiance of sanctions already in place.
Yvette Cooper with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv. Pic: Valentyn Ogirenko/PA
Some 30 individuals and companies – including Chinese and Turkey-based firms – have also been sanctioned for their part in supplying Russia with electronics, chemicals, explosives and other weapons components.
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Meanwhile on the frontline, Ukrainian drones struck Russia’s oil-loading Primorsk port overnight, an SBU official said.
The attack caused fires and suspended oil-loading operations, the official added.
Russian defence systems also intercepted and destroyed 221 Ukrainian drones overnight.
Prince Harry has made a surprise visit to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, a spokesperson for the royal has said.
Harry, who served 10 years in the British Army, visited the city at the invitation of the Ukrainian government.
The Duke of Sussex travelled to the capital to help with the recovery of military personnel seriously injured in the three-year war with Russia.
Pic: Railway of Ukraine Ukrzaliznytsia/AP
Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper will also be travelling to Kyiv on Friday in what will be her first foreign trip since being appointed to the job last week.
Her visit coincides with the UK launching a new package of Russia-related sanctions targeting ships carrying Russian oil as well as companies and individuals supplying electronics, chemicals and explosives used to make Russian weapons.
It comes as Russia and Belarus began a major joint military exercise on on NATO’s doorstep on Friday, just two days after Poland, with support from its NATO allies, shot down suspected Russian drones over its airspace.
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Drones shot down in Poland
The Zapad-2025 exercise – a show of force by Russia and its close ally – will involve drills in both countries and in the Baltic and Barents seas, the Russian defence ministry said.
Meanwhile on the frontline, Russian defence systems intercepted and destroyed 221 Ukrainian drones overnight,
including nine over the Moscow region, the ministry said on Friday.
The duke told the Guardian while on an overnight train to Kyiv: “We cannot stop the war but what we can do is do everything we can to help the recovery process.
“We can continue to humanise the people involved in this war and what they are going through.
“We have to keep it in the forefront of people’s minds. I hope this trip will help to bring it home to people because it’s easy to become desensitised to what has been going on.”
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Harry, who served two tours in Afghanistan, previously travelled to Ukraine in April, when he visited war victims as part of his work with wounded veterans.
The prince visited the Superhumans Center, an orthopaedic clinic in Lviv that treats and rehabilitates wounded military personnel and civilians.
Earlier this week, Harry said the King is “great” after he reunited with him at Clarence House for a private tea.
It was their first meeting in 19 months and lasted just 54 minutes.
The last time the father and son saw each other was in February 2024 when the prince flew to the UK after the monarch announced his cancer diagnosis.
Harry and his wife Meghan Markle have lived in California since they quit roles as senior working royals in March 2020.
Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro has been sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison for attempting a coup to stay in power after his 2022 election defeat.
The far-right politician, who ruled Brazil between 2019 and 2022, is currently under house arrest in the capital, Brasilia.
A panel of five Supreme Court justices handed down the sentence several hours after they found the 70-year-old guilty on five counts.
The counts were trying to stage a coup, being part of an armed criminal organisation, attempting violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, being implicated in violence, and posing a serious threat to the state’s assets and listed heritage.
Bolsonaro‘s lawyers have said they will appeal the verdict.
Pic: AP
The ruling will deepen political divisions in Brazil and is also likely to prompt a backlash from the United States government – with Donald Trump already sharing his thoughts on the vote.
President Trump, an ally of Bolsonaro, has said he was surprised and “very unhappy” with the decision.
Speaking to reporters outside the White House, he said he always found Bolsonaro “outstanding” and said the conviction is “very bad for Brazil”.
Mr Trump previously called the case a “witch hunt”, slapped Brazil with tariff hikes, and revoked US visas for most members of Brazil’s high court.
Bolsonaro is the first former Brazilian president to be convicted of attempting a coup.
He has not attended the court proceedings, and on Thursday, he was seen at the garage of his property, but did not talk to the media.
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Justice Carmen Lucia. Pic: AP
Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who has been overseeing the case, said on Tuesday that Bolsonaro was the leader of a coup plot and of a criminal organisation, and voted in favour of convicting him. Justices Flavio Dino, Carmen Lucia, and Cristiano Zanin sided with Justice Moraes in the trial.
On Wednesday, another justice, Luiz Fux, disagreed and voted to acquit the ex-president of all charges.
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Justice Lucia said she was convinced by the evidence the attorney general’s office put forward against Bolsonaro, saying: “He is the instigator, the leader of an organisation that orchestrated every possible move to maintain or seize power.”
Bolsonaro had been previously banned from running for office until 2030 in a different case.
He is expected to choose an heir who is likely to challenge President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva next year.
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