‘Horrifying incident’: Israel asked to explain deadly strike on Gaza residential block

Cairo: At least 93 Palestinians have been killed or are missing and dozens wounded in an Israeli strike on a residential building in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya, the Gaza Health Ministry said, and the US called the incident “horrifying”.

Medics said at least 20 children were among the dead.

Displaced Palestinians leave tents destroyed by Israel’s bombardment west of Rafah city in the southern Gaza Strip.Credit: AP

“A number of victims are still under the rubble and on the roads, and ambulance and civil defence crews cannot reach them,” the ministry said in a statement.

Ismail al-Thawabta, director of the Gaza government media office, later put the number of fatalities at 93.

There was no immediate Israeli comment on the Thursday strike. The Israeli military has frequently questioned figures on the death toll published by the Hamas-run media office, saying they are often exaggerated.

Israel’s main ally, the United States, said it was concerned by the high casualty toll, with State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller calling it a “horrifying incident with a horrifying result”.

US officials have reached out to the Israeli government to ask what happened, Miller told reporters, adding he was aware of reports that many of the dead were children.

The UN Human Rights Office said it was appalled by one of the deadliest single attacks in nearly three months, calling for a prompt, transparent investigation into the circumstances.

Video footage 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 this 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 helping to recover bodies, said in the video.

Later, Palestinian health officials said, several people were killed and wounded in another Israeli air strike that hit three houses in Beit Lahiya.

Trapped

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

The Health Ministry said those wounded in the Beit Lahiya 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,” it said.

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

Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack on Israel killed 1200 people and more than 250 hostages were captured and taken into Gaza, according to Israeli tallies. Just over 100 hostages are still held, with some thought to be dead.

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.

Hezbollah’s new leader has vowed to keep fighting Israel

In a statement, Hezbollah named Naim Qassem as its new leader. Israel said his tenure would be “temporary”, an apparent threat after it killed his predecessor Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut last month.

Naim Qassem speaks during an interview in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon in 2009. Credit: AP

“Temporary appointment. Not for long,” Israel’s Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, posted on X with a photo of Qassem.

Qassem was appointed as Hezbollah’s deputy chief in 1991 by the armed group’s then-secretary general Abbas al-Musawi, who was killed by an Israeli helicopter attack the following year.

Nasrallah was killed on September 27 in an Israeli air attack on Beirut’s southern suburbs and senior Hezbollah figure Hashem Safieddine – considered the most likely successor – was killed in Israeli strikes a week later.

Israeli ban on aid group ‘collective punishment’

The latest strike on Gaza 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 already dire humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Israeli officials cited the involvement of a handful of the UNRWA’s 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”.

The UN said most of its 2.3 million people have been internally displaced since the war broke out over a year ago.

It stressed that if Israel puts in place new laws cutting ties with UN agency for Palestinian refugees, the Israeli government will have to meet their needs under international law.

Reuters, AP