CAIRO (Reuters) – Dozens of Palestinians were killed or injured in an Israeli attack on a residential building housing at least six families in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya on Sunday (17), doctors and residents said.
The Palestinian Civil Emergency said approximately 70 people lived on the property, but the Gaza government press office put the death toll at 72.
The Israeli Army, which has been fighting the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza since October 2023, said several attacks were conducted overnight against “terrorist targets” in Beit Lahiya, with everything possible being done to avoid harm to civilians.
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“All information released by the Hamas-run Ministry of Health has to be treated with caution because it has been repeatedly proven to be unreliable in previous incidents,” he said.
Videos from the site of the attack obtained by Reuters show local residents pulling bodies from a huge pile of rubble, with surrounding homes also damaged, some seriously.
Last month, the Israeli army sent tanks to Beit Lahiya and the nearby towns of Beit Hanoun and Jabalia, the largest of the Gaza Strip’s eight historic refugee camps, in what it said was a campaign to confront Hamas militants through of attacks and preventing them from regrouping.
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The army said it had killed hundreds of militants in three areas that residents say were cut off from Gaza City by Israeli forces.
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A statement from the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, an ally of Hamas, said on Sunday that fighters blew up an Israeli military vehicle during fighting in Beit Lahiya. There was no comment from Israel on this allegation at first.
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Later on Sunday, an Israeli strike killed five Palestinians tasked with escorting humanitarian aid trucks that had entered the enclave, according to residents of Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip.
Another attack in Gaza City killed two men, they added.
Earlier in the day, an Israeli airstrike killed at least 10 people in the Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip when a missile hit a house, according to medics. Four other people were killed in the nearby Nuseirat camp, they added.
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Qatar has told Hamas and Israel that it will halt attempts to broker a ceasefire in Gaza and a hostage release agreement until they demonstrate “willingness and seriousness” to resume negotiations.
The two warring sides continue to point fingers at each other. Hamas wants a deal to end the war, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the conflict can only end when Hamas is eradicated.
The Gaza Ministry of Health said that 43,800 people have been confirmed dead since . Hamas militants killed about 1,200 Israelis that day and still hold dozens of the 250 hostages they took back to Gaza, according to Israeli counts.
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