British doctor heartbroken after 35 relatives killed in Gaza tower block blast

A British doctor says more than 30 members of his family have been killed in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza.

Dr Mohamed Altawil said around 100 people were killed when a tower block in Nuseirat Camp was hit on October 15.

Among those killed were 35 of his and his wife Nisreen’s relatives, including some as young as three.

The 49-year-old clinical psychologist told the Mirror: “I found out they had died after my wife came downstairs screaming and crying after her sister told her what happened. I said to her: ‘What’s going on?’ She told me: ‘They killed the whole family’.

“Then I contacted the family and found out about 30 of my relatives had died.

“Fifteen of the bodies have yet to be recovered from beneath the rubble because of a shortage of machinery. I am devastated. My wife is so traumatised she can hardly speak about what has happened.”

Dr Altawil, who moved to the UK in 2004 and now lives in Hertfordshire, said his 65-year-old cousin Abed-Aziz Altawil – who was a UN English teacher – was also among the dead.

The strike came just days after a trauma centre that Dr Altawil set up in Gaza in 2007 was damaged after a bomb landed on a building nearby – with the centre’s roof reportedly destroyed.

He added: “I cried when I found out. It was heartbreaking, I’d been building the centre up step by step. It feels like I’ve lost my baby.”

Calling on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to demand an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and said Israel should allow vital supplies into Gaza including food, water and fuel – as well as bulldozers to free those trapped under rubble.

He said: “My family are not militants, they are not Hamas. They are like me, they are civilians.

“We are not wild animals, we are not insects – we are humans and we need justice.”