Israeli strike devastates north Gaza

Israeli strikes killed dozens of people in Gaza Sunday, civil defense rescuers said, most of them in northern Gaza where the UN and others have decried disastrous humanitarian conditions.

In Lebanon, Israeli strikes killed 11 people in the south and six in Beirut — including Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif.

Vowing to stop Hamas from regrouping in northern Gaza, Israel on 6 October began air and ground operation in Jabalia and then expanded it to Beit Lahia.

The fighting comes more than a year after the Palestinian militants triggered the Gaza war with their unprecedented 7 October attack on Israel.

On Sunday, Gaza’s civil defense agency said 34 people were killed, including children, and dozens were missing after an Israeli air strike hit a five-story residential building in Beit Lahia.

“The chances of rescuing more wounded are decreasing because of the continuous shooting and artillery shelling,” civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.

Weighed down with backpacks, many like Omar Abdel Aaal were fleeing, often on foot, through dusty streets.

“They bombarded the houses and completely destroyed Beit Lahia,” he said.

Israel’s military said there were “ongoing terrorist activities in the area of Beit Lahia” and several strikes were directed at militant targets there.

“We emphasize that there have been continuous efforts to evacuate the civilian population from the active war zone in the area,” the military said in a statement.

It separately announced the death of two soldiers during combat in north Gaza.

In other deadly strikes, Bassal said attacks killed 15 people in central Gaza and five in the southern city of Rafah.

Also in the south, in the Khan Yunis area, civil defense said an Israeli drone targeted a group of unarmed people securing an aid delivery, killing six.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza on Sunday said the overall death toll in more than 13 months of war had reached 43,846.

The majority of the dead are civilians, according to ministry data which the United Nations consider reliable.

Israel has been fighting on two fronts since September, when it intensified air raids on Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah and sent in ground troops against the militants in south Lebanon. This followed nearly a year of cross-border clashes that Hezbollah said were in support of Hamas.