At about 4am local time (06:00 GMT), Israeli warplanes bombed the home, destroying it completely.

“This is my uncles’ house,” Fadi Nisman told Al Jazeera. “My two uncles were with their families, three generations of them.”

Only weeks ago, the extended family had fled from the Shati refugee camp in the west of Gaza City following Israeli orders to head south of the enclave and taken refuge with the Nismans.

But in the Gaza Strip, there is no such thing as a safe place.

Fadi described Sunday’s attack as an “atomic bomb”.

“We are collecting body parts from the nearby lands, a hand here, a head there,” he said.

“We haven’t managed to pull out anyone from under the rubble, just those torn bodies that were flung in the air from the force of the bomb.”

His neighbour, Wael al-Mahanna, said the attack was worse than a powerful earthquake.

“There was no warning from the Israelis – they didn’t call or text or tell us to evacuate,” he said, adding that the neighbourhood had civilian residents.

“No one in the house survived. There were about 45 people inside,” he said.

“There was a body flung on one of the posts, and his head was found further on the rooftop. No one can even begin to comprehend what happened.”

At least 15 bodies were transferred to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah, local sources said.

The blast damaged the surrounding homes, devastating the residential block.

As the Israeli offensive on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip continued for the 65th day, the death toll has reached close to a dizzying 18,000, nearly 8,000 of them children.

More than 48,700 others have been wounded while a further 7,780 Palestinians remain missing, believed to be dead under the rubble of their homes.

Fadi Nisman said people want an end to the bloodshed. “We want an end to this criminality,” he told Al Jazeera.