An Israeli strike on a five-storey building where displaced Palestinians were sheltering in northern Gaza killed at least 60 people early on Tuesday, more than half of them women and children, Gaza’s health ministry has said.
In a separate development, Lebanon’s militant group Hezbollah said it has chosen Sheikh Naim Kassem as its new top leader following the killing of Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli airstrike last month.
The group said in a statement that Hezbollah’s decision-making Shura Council elected Mr Kassem, who had been deputy leader for over three decades, as the new secretary-general. Hezbollah vowed to continue with Mr Nasrallah’s policies “until victory is achieved.”
The ministry’s emergency service said another 20 people were injured in the strike in the northern town of Beit Lahiya, near the Israeli border.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
The dead included a mother and her five children, some of them adults, and a second mother with her six children, according to an initial casualty list provided by the emergency service.
Dr Hossam Abu Safiya, director of the nearby Kamal Adwan Hospital, said it was overwhelmed by the wave of wounded people from the strike. Israeli forces raided the medical facility over the weekend, detaining dozens of medics.
The Israeli military has repeatedly struck shelters for displaced people in recent months, saying it carried out precise strikes targeting Palestinian militants and tried to avoid harming civilians. The strikes have often killed women and children.
The military said it detained scores of Hamas militants in the raid on Kamal Adwan, the latest in a series of raids on hospitals since the start of the war.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250.
Some 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities.
About 90% of the population of 2.3 million have been displaced from their homes, often multiple times.
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