CAIRO: Dozens of Palestinians were killed or injured in an Israeli strike on a multi-storey residential building housing at least six families in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahiya town on Sunday, medics and residents said.
The Palestinian Civil Emergency said around 70 people were living in the property but the Gaza government media office put the number of those killed at 72.
The Israeli military, which has been fighting Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza since October 2023, said several strikes were conducted overnight on “terrorist targets” in Beit Lahiya with everything possible done to avoid civilian harm.
“All information released by the Hamas-run Ministry of Health should be treated with caution, as it has been repeatedly proven unreliable in previous incidents,” it said.
Video footage of the strike site obtained by Reuters showed locals pulling bodies from a huge pile of rubble, with surrounding houses also damaged, some heavily.
The Israeli army sent tanks into Beit Lahiya and the nearby towns of Beit Hanoun and Jabalia, the largest of the Gaza Strip’s eight historic refugee camps, last month in what it said was a campaign to fight Hamas militants waging attacks and prevent them from regrouping.
It said it has killed hundreds of militants in those three areas, which residents said Israeli forces had isolated from Gaza City.
MOUNTING DEATHS
A statement by the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, an ally of Hamas, on Sunday said fighters blew up an Israeli army vehicle during fighting in Beit Lahiya. There was no immediate comment from Israel on the claim.
Later on Sunday, an Israeli strike killed five Palestinians, tasked with escorting aid trucks that entered the enclave, according to residents in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip.
Another strike in Gaza City killed two men, they added.
Earlier in the day, an Israeli air strike killed at least 10 people in the Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip, when a missile hit a house, medics said. Four other people were killed in the nearby Nuseirat camp, they added.
Qatar has told Hamas and Israel it will stall efforts to mediate a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal until they show “willingness and seriousness” to resume talks.
The two warring sides continue to trade blame. Hamas wants a deal that ends the war, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the war can only end once Hamas is eradicated.
The Gaza health ministry said 43,800 people have been confirmed killed since Oct. 7, 2023. Hamas militants killed around 1,200 Israelis that day, and still hold dozens of some 250 hostages they took back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
