Medical officials and the Hamas-run Civil Defense Agency say at least 19 people have been killed in a late-night Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza.
Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Bisal told AFP news agency that several missiles fell on a three-story house near Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia town.
Dozens of people are said to be living there and many are still trapped under the debris, he added. Palestinian media reported that nine children were among the dead.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed that it had carried out a strike targeting a Hamas “terrorist” in the vicinity of Kamal Adwan, but questioned the death toll.
“According to a preliminary assessment, the number of casualties resulting from the strike published in the media is incorrect and does not correspond to the information available to the IDF,” it said. “The IDF is continuing to investigate the incident.”
Israeli forces launched a major ground offensive in parts of northern Gaza on October 6, saying they were preventing Hamas from regrouping there.
The United Nations said on Tuesday that Beit Lahia, as well as the nearby towns of Beit Hanun and Jabalia, were under heavy Israeli siege and that virtually no humanitarian aid had been delivered for 66 days.
It added that between 65,000 and 75,000 people were still left inside the towns without food, water, electricity or healthcare.
Attacks on hospitals in northern Gaza, which are barely functioning amid severe supply shortages, also continue to be reported.
The hospital was attacked with fire, bombs and bullets on four occasions between December 3 and Saturday, killing seven people, including four doctors and a child, and injuring at least three medical staff as well as patients, the United Nations said. Injured. and their companions.
The head of the World Health Organization said such attacks were “unacceptable and are depriving the people of northern Gaza of already minimal health services”.
The IDF said on Sunday that it had conducted an assessment and found that its forces had not attacked the area around the hospital or damaged its essential equipment.
The Civil Defense also said on Wednesday that it had recovered the bodies of two people killed when a house was hit in the northwestern Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza City.
Palestinian media say that journalist Iman al-Shanti and his son Bilal were killed in a separate attack in the northern Sheikh Rizwan neighborhood. The Palestinian Union of Journalists said Shanti was the 193rd journalist killed by Israel since the start of the Gaza war.
Seven more people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a family’s home in Nusrat refugee camp in central Gaza. According to reports, they included two children and their parents.
Later, the IDF ordered residents of the nearby Maghazi refugee camp to leave as rockets were fired from the area on Wednesday morning.
According to the IDF, four rockets landed in open areas while two were intercepted by the Israeli Air Force. No injuries were reported.
On October 7, 2023, Israel launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to the Palestinian group’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel, which killed approximately 1,200 people and took 251 others hostage.
More than 44,800 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the Hamas-ruled territory’s health ministry.