GAZA: An Israeli air strike on a single residential block killed nearly 100 people on Tuesday, Gaza’s civil defence agency said, leaving rescuers scrambling through rubble for survivors as Israel pressed on with its offensives in Gaza and Lebanon.
The latest bombing came as Israel faced a chorus of international criticism after its parliament voted overwhelmingly to ban UNRWA, the main United Nations aid agency working with Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Palestinian rescuers and desperate family members gathered round the demolished five-storey block in Beit Lahia in the north of Gaza.
A charred body with long hair hung out of an upper-storey window and corpses wrapped in blankets were lined up in the street below, as stunned relatives sought to identify the dead.
The Israeli military said it was “looking into the reports” of the strike in Beit Lahia, having earlier reported that its ground and air forces had killed 40 Hamas fighters and lost four of its own soldiers in combat in Gaza.
“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 said.
The Israeli military has been conducting a sweeping air and ground assault in northern Gaza since October 6 – particularly around Jabalia, Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun — in what it describes as an operation to prevent Hamas from regrouping.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been forced to flee the area, more than 12 months into the war sparked by Hamas militants launching a bloody cross-border assault into Israel on Oct 7 last year. Israel strictly controls all humanitarian aid shipments into Gaza, and UNRWA has provided essential aid, schooling and healthcare across the Palestinian territories and in the diaspora for more than seven decades.
In Lebanon, Israeli tanks rolled into the outskirts of the village of Khiam, their deepest incursion yet in the ground operation they launched against Hezbollah last month, state media reported.
Separately, the United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, said its headquarters in southern Lebanon had been hit by a rocket fired “likely by Hezbollah or an affiliated group”, leaving some troops with minor injuries. The Austrian defence minister said eight of its soldiers were hurt. According to AFP tally based on official figures, at least 1,700 have been killed in Lebanon since Sept 23.
