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Israeli strike on Gaza multi-storey residential building reportedly kills dozens Renewed Israeli airstrikes leave scores dead in Gaza, say medics
(about 8 hours later)
At least 73 people died in the strike, doctors and officials say; Israeli army disputes casualty numbers and says attack was directed at a Hamas target UN special coordinator says ‘nightmare in Gaza is intensifying’ and calls for immediate end to violence
An Israeli airstrike that hit several houses and a multi-storey residential building in the town of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza caused dozens of casualties, doctors and officials said. At least 87 people have been killed or are missing and 40 injured after intense Israeli airstrikes overnight in the north of the Gaza Strip, part of the country’s ferocious renewed assault on the area, medics in the besieged Palestinian territory have said.
The Hamas media office said at least 73 people had been killed in the strike on Saturday. No official figures were immediately available from the health ministry, however Medway Abbas, a senior health ministry official, said the figures were accurate. A total of 108 people have been killed in bombings across the region in the past 24 hours, according to local health officials.
The Israeli military said it was looking into the incident but that the numbers issued by the Hamas media office were exaggerated. It said the figures did not align with its own information, the precise munitions used or the accuracy of the strike, which it said was directed at a Hamas target. “The nightmare in Gaza is intensifying. Horrifying scenes are unfolding in the northern Strip amidst relentless Israeli strikes and an ever-worsening humanitarian crisis,” Tor Wennesland, the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, said in a statement.
Palestinian health officials said rescue operations were being hampered by the cut-off of telecommunication and internet services for a second day. “Nowhere is safe in Gaza … We owe it to the families suffering in Gaza and Israel. The war must stop now,” he added.
Residents and medics on Saturday said Israeli forces had tightened their siege on Jabalia, the largest of the enclave’s eight historic camps, which it encircled by also sending tanks to the nearby towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya and issuing evacuation orders to residents. The bombings late on Saturday night in the town of Beit Lahia flattened several houses and an apartment block, killing members of several families, according to Raheem Kheder, a medic. Among the dead were two parents and their four children, and a woman, her son and her daughter-law and their four children, he said.
Israeli officials said evacuation orders were aimed at separating Hamas fighters from civilians and denied there was any systematic plan to clear civilians out of Jabalia or other northern areas. The internet and phone services have been down in parts of Gaza since Saturday evening, complicating the rescue operation.
It came as Benjamin Netanyahu’s house in the seaside town of Caesarea was hit by a drone on Saturday, causing superficial damage and no casualties. In a post on X, Mounir al-Bursh, the director general of the health ministry, said the flood of wounded from the strikes compounded “an already catastrophic situation for the health care system” in northern Gaza.
The Israeli government said that one of the prime minister’s three homes was targeted by three drones, two of which were intercepted, and that neither Netanyahu nor his wife, Sara, were home at the time. There was no immediate comment on the strikes in Beit Lahia from the Israeli military, which said it was “continuing to operate across Gaza in both aerial strikes and ground operations”.
“The attempt by Iran’s proxy Hezbollah to assassinate me and my wife today was a grave mistake,” Netanyahu said in a statement, vowing that Iran and its proxies would “pay a heavy price”. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has nominally held complete control of northern Gaza since January, but launched a new assault on the area two weeks ago that it said was aimed at stopping Hamas militants from regrouping.
In Jabalia, residents said Israeli forces besieged several shelters housing displaced families before they stormed them and detained dozens of men. Footage on social media showed dozens of Palestinian men sitting on the ground next to a tank, while others were led by a soldier to a gathering site. Gaza’s civil defence service said it had recovered at least 500 bodies since the operation began on 6 October.
Residents and medical officials said Israeli forces were bombing houses and besieging hospitals, preventing medical and food supplies from entering to force them to leave the camp. Sweeping evacuation orders for the estimated 400,000 people still living in the northern third of the territory, the blockage of aid and food deliveries and the targeting of civilian infrastructure such as hospitals have led rights groups to accuse Israel of the war crime of seeking to forcibly displace the remaining population.
Health officials said they refused orders by the Israeli army to evacuate hospitals or leave the patients, many in critical condition, unattended. Israel has denied it is systematically removing Palestinians from the area.
“Hospitals in northern Gaza suffer from stark shortages of medical supplies and manpower and are overwhelmed by the number of casualties,” said Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan hospital. Several struggling hospitals have been unable to evacuate patients, and two people at the Indonesian hospital in Beit Lahia have died from a lack of oxygen after electricity and fuel shortages, the health ministry in the territory said.
The United Nations’ top aid official said Palestinians were living through “unspeakable horrors” under siege by Israeli forces in northern Gaza and insisted that “these atrocities must stop”. The tightening of the siege on northern Gaza comes as Israel’s new war with Hezbollah in Lebanon deepens.
“In Jabalia, people are trapped under the rubble and first responders are blocked from reaching them,” the UN’s acting humanitarian chief Joyce Msuya said on X. Israel said its air force attacked Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters in Beirut on Sunday, as well as an underground workshop for the production of weapons, and killed three commanders. Hezbollah made no immediate comment.
Earlier on Saturday, Israeli planes dropped leaflets over southern Gaza showing a picture of the dead Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar with the message “Hamas will no longer rule Gaza”, echoing language used by Netanyahu. Meanwhile, world powers are awaiting Israel’s retaliation to Iranian strikes on the Jewish state on 1 October launched in support of Tehran’s Lebanese ally.
US vice-president Kamala Harris repeated her call for a ceasefire in Israel’s war in Gaza and said it was important to seize the opportunity provided by the killing of Sinwar. Late on Friday, it emerged that top-secret US documents that allegedly reveal details about Israel’s plans to attack Iran had been leaked and published online.
“This creates an opening that I believe we must take full advantage of – to dedicate ourselves to ending this war and bringing the hostages home,” the Democratic presidential candidate said on the campaign trail from Detroit. Washington has not denied that the files, which appear to be the US’s assessment of Israel’s preparations, are authentic. The papers supposedly date from 15 and 16 October, and allege that Israel has fortified underground warplane bunkers at the Hatzerim airbase, where there are signs of preparation for arming plane-launched ballistic missiles.
The 7 October attack Sinwar planned on Israeli communities a year ago killed about 1,200 people, with another 253 dragged back to Gaza as hostages, according to Israeli tallies. An Israeli source told the Israeli daily Haaretz that the US had apologised to Israel for the leak.
Israel’s subsequent war has devastated Gaza, killing more than 42,500 Palestinians, with another 10,000 uncounted dead thought to lie under the rubble, Gaza health authorities say.
Reuters contributed reporting