GAZA, Palestine
At least 93 people are dead or missing after an Israeli air strike on the town of Beit Lahia in northern Gaza, the Hamas-run health ministry says, in an attack that the United States called "horrifying".
Rescuers said a five-storey
residential building was hit, and videos on social media showed bodies covered
in blankets on the floor.
The Israeli military said it
was "aware of reports that civilians were harmed today [Tuesday] in the
Beit Lahia area". It added that the details of the incident were being
looked into.
The Israel Defense Forces
(IDF) have been operating in northern Gaza during the past two weeks,
particularly in the areas of Jabalia, Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun.
The director of the nearby
Kamal Adwan hospital in Jabalia, Hussam Abu Safia, told the AFP news agency
that children were being treated at the hospital, which is struggling to treat
patients due to a lack of staff and medicines.
"There is nothing left in
the Kamal Adwan Hospital except first aid materials after the army arrested our
medical team and workers," Abu Safia said.
The IDF raided the hospital
last week, saying it was being used by Hamas fighters.
State Department spokesman
Matthew Miller said the US was "deeply concerned by the loss of civilian
life in this incident. This was a horrifying incident with a horrifying
result".
He pointed to "reports of
two dozen children killed" in the attack.
The "tragic cost to
civilians" in the latest strike "is another reminder of why we need
to see an end to this war", Miller said.
Israel says its operations in
northern Gaza are designed to prevent Hamas from regrouping and accuses them of
embedding among the civilian population, which Hamas denies.
In a statement on Tuesday, it
said it killed 40 “terrorists” in Jabalia, and in central Gaza it said it
“eliminated many terrorists" over the past 24 hours including some who
"attempted to plant explosives near the troops".
The northern Gaza Strip faces
a deepening humanitarian crisis, with hundreds of thousands of people living in
desperate conditions.
UN human rights chief Volker
Türk said on Friday that "the Israeli military is subjecting an entire
population to bombing, siege and risk of starvation".
He also said it was
unacceptable that Palestinian armed groups were reportedly operating among
civilians, including inside shelters for the displaced, and putting them in
harm’s way.
On Monday, Israel's parliament
voted through legislation to ban the UN's Palestinian refugee agency, Unrwa,
from operating in the country, sparking warnings the delivery of aid to
Gaza could be severely impacted.
Israel launched a campaign to
destroy Hamas in response to the group's unprecedented attack on southern
Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed, and 251
others were taken hostage.
More than 42,924 people have
been killed in Gaza, according to the health ministry, which does not
distinguish between civilians and fighters in its figures.
Israel is not allowing
international journalists from media organisations, independent access to Gaza,
making it hard to verify facts on the ground.
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