Deir Al-Balah: Gaza's civil defence agency said Tuesday that an overnight Israeli air strike killed at least 60 people in a residential building in the northern district of Beit Lahia.
"More than 55 people have been martyred and dozens more wounded are under the rubble of a five-storey residential building belonging to the Abu Nasr family that was hit by the Israeli occupation last night in Beit Lahia," agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP. News agency AP put the death toll at 60.
The Israeli military said it was "looking into the reports". "The explosion happened at night and I first thought it was shelling, but when I went out after sunrise I saw people pulling bodies, limbs and the wounded from under the rubble," said Rabie al-Shandagly, 30, who had taken refuge in a nearby school in Beit Lahia.
"Most of the victims are women and children, and people are trying to save the injured, but there are no hospitals or proper medical care," he told AFP. The bodies of 15 people killed in the strike were brought to Kamal Adwan Hospital, its director Hussam Abu Safia told AFP.
He said 35 wounded people, most of them children, were being treated at the hospital. "We are still receiving a number of martyrs and wounded," Safia said, adding that the hospital was 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 when they invaded the hospital during the military operation in Jabalia," Safia said. Last week, the Gaza health ministry said Israeli troops had stormed the hospital, while the Israeli military said it was operating around it.
"The enemy has committed another horrific massacre against our people, and northern Gaza is being subjected to a campaign of ethnic cleansing and systematic displacement," Hamas said in a statement condemning the Beit Lahia attack.
Since October 6, the military has conducted a sweeping air and ground assault in northern Gaza, particularly in the areas of Jabalia, Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun, in what it describes as an operation to prevent Hamas militants from regrouping. In a statement issued on Tuesday morning, the military said it had carried out several ground and air strikes in Jabalia over the past day, killing around 40 militants.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been forced to flee northern Gaza since the onslaught began, while the civil defence agency has reported hundreds of deaths.
TIMELINE OF ISRAEL BRUTAL KILLING OF PALESTINIANS IN GAZA
17.10.2023: An explosion at al-Ahli al-Arabi Baptist hospital in Gaza City triggers outrage in the Arab world. Palestinians say hundreds died and blame the blast on an Israeli airstrike; Israel says it was caused by a misfiring Palestinian rocket, an assertion later backed by Washington. The Gaza Health Ministry reported 342 injured and 471 killed.
15.11.2023: Israeli troops enter Gaza's biggest hospital, Al Shifa in Gaza City, after a siege of several days during which medical staff say patients including newborn babies died from a lack of power and supplies. The Israelis say the hospital had been used to conceal an underground headquarters for Hamas fighters, which staff deny. The military later takes media on a tour of a tunnel there. Within a few more weeks, all hospitals serving the northern half of Gaza will have ceased functioning. Later on 09th of April 381 bodies were recovered from the complex
09.04.2024: At least 381 bodies were recovered from the vicinity of the Al-Shifa Hospital complex since Israeli forces withdrew on April 1, Gaza Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basal said adding that the total figure did not include people buried within the grounds of the hospital. It was one of several mass graves found at al-Shifa – the largest medical facility in the coastal enclave.
29.02.2024: The flour massacre : 118 Palestinians are killed queuing for aid in the presence of Israeli troops who opened fire, in one of the deadliest attacks of the conflict. The incident occurred on al-Rashid Street at the Nabulsi Roundabout on the southwestern side of Gaza City, where food deliveries had been scarce.
01.04.2024: Israel bombs World Central Kitchen aid convoy: Israel struck a World Central Kitchen (WCK) convoy and killed seven aid workers — citizens of Australia, Britain and Poland as well as Palestinians and a dual citizen of the United States and Canada — of the charity, drawing a global outcry.
21.04.2024: Palestinian civil defence crews have uncovered a mass grave inside the Nasser Medical Complex in Gaza’s Khan Younis, with 180 bodies recovered so far.
21.04.2024: A baby girl was delivered from the womb of a Palestinian killed along with her husband and daughter by an Israeli attack in the Gaza city of Rafah, where 22 people, mostly kids, died overnight in intensified strikes, Palestinian health officials said. The dead, killed in hits on two houses, included 17 children from one family.
27.05.2024: An Israeli airstrike triggered a fire that killed 45 people in a tent camp in the Gazan city of Rafah, officials said, prompting an outcry from global leaders who urged the implementation of a World Court order to halt Israel's assault.
04.06.2024: The Gaza Health Ministry reported that at least 71 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks in the past 24 hours.
08.06.2024: Hamas's government media office reported that at least 210 people were killed in Israeli attacks on a Gaza refugee camp where four hostages were rescued. The Israeli army carried out the rescue operation in Nuseirat.
22.06.2024: At least 42 people were killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza's Al-Tuffah neighbourhood and Al-Shati refugee camp, Reuters reported citing the director of the Hamas-run government media office.
13.07.2024: Israeli air strikes on the al-Mawasi camp in southern Gaza have killed at least 90 people and wounded 300 others, according to Palestinian health officials. The attack on the Israeli-designated “safe zone”, located west of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, involved fighter jets and drones, according to witnesses.
27.07.2024: A wave of Israeli airstrikes targeting central and southern Gaza have killed at least 50 people and injured an estimated 200, with one strike hitting a school where thousands were seeking shelter. Palestinian health ministry officials said at least 30 people were killed in an airstrike on the Khadija school in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
10.08.2024: An Israeli strike on a school in Gaza, sheltering displaced people, killed over 100 individuals and injured dozens early Saturday. The attack targeted the Al-Tabai'een school in Daraj district, Israel claimed it was used by Hamas as a command center.
18.10.2024: At least 33 people were killed and 85 wounded in Israeli strikes that hit several houses in Jabalia, the largest of Gaza's eight historic refugee camps, medics said, where residents said tanks blew up roads and houses.
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