Girl, 5, survives fiery aftermath of deadly Israeli strike on Gaza City school shelter

WARNING: This story contains details of bodies of children being burned.

Harrowing video of a young Palestinian girl trying to escape a school shelter that had been set on fire after a deadly overnight Israeli airstrike circulated widely on social media Monday. The five-year-old girl survived the attack after being rescued by emergency crews, but six of her family members were killed and two remain in critical condition.

In the video, the silhouette of a child is seen trudging through rubble at Fahmi Al-Jarjawi School in Gaza City, which had been set ablaze in the early morning hours Monday. "I was scared of the fire," Ward Al-Sheikh Khalil told CBC News on Monday, after she was rescued and treated in hospital. "The whole school was burning up."

Her five siblings — between the ages of two and 18 — along with their mother, were all killed in the Israeli airstrike on the school shelter, where they had been sleeping at the time. Ward's father and brother, meanwhile, remain in critical condition in hospital.

Hussein Mohsen, a paramedic in Gaza, said rescue crews including medical workers and Palestinian Civil Defence volunteers, had difficulty entering the shelter after the strike at around 2 a.m. local time — but as soon as they gained access, they swiftly began searching for survivors under the rubble.

"The [rubble] was scorching hot, and she was underneath," Mohsen said. "She wasn't talking or screaming. We just noticed her foot that was moving; nothing else was moving."

Mohsen, along with Ward and her uncle Ayad Al-Sheikh Khalil, confirmed that Ward is the child in the video. Mohsen said Ward was likely trapped anywhere between 15 to 30 minutes before rescuers were able to pull her out of the rubble and rush her to hospital.

Ayad Al-Sheikh Khalil said he was alerted to the attack on the school before recognizing Ward in the video circulating online of her walking through the fiery scene before being rescued by emergency crews.

"When I arrived, I found my brother's family's bodies all charred and cut up," he said, as he held Ward in his arms.

Mohsen said rescuers were using their bare hands to search through the wreckage, with little to no equipment available to them in Gaza to help rescue survivors and remove bodies. 

While he was relieved he was able to rescue Ward, Mohsen said emergency crews witnessed dozens of bodies, overwhelmingly of children, which were burned and lay at the site of the strike.

"I was placing three bodies of children in one body bag because of the shortage of body bags on hand," he said.

"I would place two or four [bodies], or I would place a mother and her children in one body bag."

Health officials said 36 people were killed in the airstrike on the school, including women and children who had been displaced by the 20-month war and were seeking shelter inside.