Israeli strike kills dozens in north Gaza town, health ministry says

29 October 2024 - 12:53 By Nidal Al Mughrabi
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A man searches for casualties trapped under the rubble of a building in a school-turned-shelter in Gaza hit by an Israeli strike on October 27 2024.
A man searches for casualties trapped under the rubble of a building in a school-turned-shelter in Gaza hit by an Israeli strike on October 27 2024.
Image: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas

At least 60 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded in an Israeli strike on a residential building in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya on Tuesday, the Gaza health ministry said.

Marwan Al-Hams, an official at the health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave, said 17 other people were missing and would be counted as dead and 150 people were wounded. Medics said 20 children were among the dead.

Later on Tuesday, Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the government media office, put the number of fatalities at 93.

There was no immediate Israeli comment. The Israeli military has frequently questioned death tolls published by the Hamas media office, saying they were often exaggerated.

Video footage obtained by Reuters showed several bodies wrapped in blankets on the ground outside a bombed four-storey building. More bodies and survivors were being retrieved from under the wreckage as neighbours rushed to help with the rescue.

“There are tens of martyrs (dead). Tens of displaced people were living in the house. The house was bombed without prior warning. As you can see, martyrs are here and there, with body parts hanging on the walls,” Ismail Ouaida, a witness who was helping to recover bodies, said in the video.

On Monday, the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said around 100,000 people were marooned in Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun without medical or food supplies. Reuters could not verify the number independently.

The health ministry said on Tuesday those wounded in the strike could not receive care as doctors had been forced to evacuate the nearby Kamal Adwan Hospital.

“Critical cases without intervention will succumb to their destiny and die,” the ministry said.

Gaza's emergency service said its operations had come to a halt because of the three-week Israeli assault into northern Gaza. Israel said its campaign is to destroy the Palestinian militant group Hamas, whose fighters had returned to the area in the year-long war.

Hamas' October 7 2023 attack on Israel killed 1,200 people and more than 250 hostages were captured and taken into Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

The death toll from Israel's retaliatory air and ground onslaught in Gaza has exceeded 43,000, the Gaza health ministry said.

Gaza's war has kindled wider conflict in the Middle East, with Israel bombing Lebanon and sending forces into its south to disable Iran-backed Hezbollah, a Hamas ally.

Tuesday's strike came a day after Israel's parliament passed a law to ban the UN relief agency UNRWA from operating inside the country, alarming some of Israel's Western allies, who fear it will worsen the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Israeli officials cited the involvement of a handful of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees' thousands of staffers in the October 7 2023 attack and a few staffers' membership in Hamas and other armed groups.

UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini described the move as “collective punishment”.

It was unclear how the decision will impact the lives of Palestinians, specially in the Gaza Strip, where the UN said most of its 2.3-million people have become internally displaced since the war erupted than a year ago.

Reuters


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