JABALIA      -          A huge fire that ripped through a home north of Gaza City where fuel was being stored killed at least 21 people including seven children on Thursday, official and medical sources said. Hamas, who control the Israeli-blockaded Palestinian enclave, said firefighters had managed to contain the blaze in Jabalia that left charred walls and mounds of black soot before being put out. Gaza’s civil defence unit confirmed in a statement that 21 people had been killed. The head of the Indonesian Hospital in Jabalia, Saleh Abu Laila, told AFP that the facility had received the bodies of at least seven children. While the cause of the fire remained unknown, a spokesman for the civil defence unit told AFP that supplies of fuel were stored in the house. Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas, based in the occupied West Bank -- a separate Palestinian territory -- considered the fire “a national tragedy”, his spokesman said. Abbas declared a day of mourning on Friday, with flags to be flown at half-mast, and offered to send aid to families of the victims to “ease their suffering”, spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said in a statement. Senior PA official Hussein Al Sheikh urged Israel to open the Erez crossing that connects Gaza with southern Israel and is normally closed at night. This would allow the transport of critically-hurt patients “in order to treat them outside the Gaza Strip if necessary”, Al Sheikh said. tUrKISh prESIdENt SENdS CoNdolENCES to pAlEStINIANS ovEr dEAdly GAzA fIrE The Turkish president on Friday conveyed his condolences to the “friendly and brotherly Palestinian people” over the death of 21 Palestinians after a fire ripped through a building in the Gaza Strip. “We are deeply saddened by the death of 21 Palestinian brothers, including children, in the fire disaster in Gaza,” Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Twitter. Erdogan wished a speedy recovery to the injured.