Israeli strike on home in north Gaza kills 19 people, medics say

An overnight Israeli air strike in northern Gaza has killed at least 19 people, medical officials and the Hamas-run Civil Defence agency say.

Civil Defence spokesman Mahmoud Bassal told AFP news agency that several missiles hit a three-storey house near Kamal Adwan hospital in the town of Beit Lahia.

Dozens of people were said to have been living there and many were still trapped under the rubble, he added. Palestinian media reported that the dead included nine children.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed it had carried out a strike targeting a Hamas “terrorist” in the vicinity of Kamal Adwan but questioned the reported death toll.

“According to an initial examination, the number of casualties resulting from the strike published in the media is inaccurate and does not align with the information held by the IDF,” it said. “The IDF is continuing to examine the incident.”

Israeli forces launched a major ground offensive in parts of northern Gaza on 6 October, saying it is stopping Hamas from regrouping there.

The UN said on Tuesday that Beit Lahia, as well as the nearby towns of Beit Hanoun and Jabalia, were under a tightened Israeli siege and that virtually no humanitarian aid had been delivered for 66 days.

That had left between 65,000 and 75,000 people estimated to be still inside the towns without access to food, water, electricity or healthcare, it added.

Attacks on hospitals in northern Gaza, which are barely functioning amid severe supply shortages, also continue to be reported.

The UN said the hospital was attacked by fire, bombs and shells on four occasions between 3 December and Saturday, resulting in the killing of seven people, including four medics and a child, and the injuring of at least three medical staff as well as patients and their companions.

The head of the World Health Organization said such attacks were “unacceptable and are depriving people in northern Gaza of the already minimal health services they had left”.

The IDF said on Sunday that it had conducted a review and found that its forces had not struck in the vicinity of the hospital or damaged any of its essential equipment.

The Civil Defence also said on Wednesday that it had recovered the bodies of two people killed when a house in the north-western Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City was hit.

Palestinian media said a separate strike on the northern Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood killed journalist Iman al-Shanti and her son, Bilal. The Palestinian Union of Journalists said Shanti was the 193rd journalist killed by Israel since the start of the Gaza war.

Another seven people were killed in an Israeli air strike on a family home in the urban Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. They reportedly included two children and their parents.

Later, the IDF ordered residents of the nearby Maghazi refugee camp to evacuate because rockets had been launched from the area on Wednesday morning.

Four of the rockets fell in open areas while two others were intercepted by Israeli Air Force, according to the IDF. No injuries were reported.

Israel launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to the Palestinian group’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

More than 44,800 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.