Gaza fire kills 21 people from same family during birthday party

Hamas police officers secure the scene of a burned apartment on the third floor of a three-storey building in the Jebaliya refugee camp, northern Gaza Strip (Adel Hana/AP)

Twenty-one victims of a fire which tore through a top-floor apartment in the Gaza Strip during a birthday party were members of the same family, two of their relatives said.

Officials in Hamas-run Gaza said Thursday night’s blaze in a three-storey residential building in the Jabaliya refugee camp was apparently fuelled by stored petrol.