Israeli missile destroys residential building in Northern Gaza, killing at least 93 Palestinians – 20 of them were children

According to health authorities, at least 93 Palestinians – 20 children among them – were killed after Israeli troops targeted a residential building in Beit Lahiya, Northern Gaza.

The Israeli strike, which the United States called “horrifying,” also left dozens wounded.

“A number of victims are still under the rubble and on the roads and ambulance and civil defense crews cannot reach them,” Gaza’s Health Ministry said in a statement.

Reuters reported that U.S. officials have contacted the Israeli government to ask what happened. U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said he was aware of reports that many of the dead were children.

Footage obtained by Reuters showed several bodies wrapped in blankets on the ground outside a bombed four-story building. More bodies and survivors were being retrieved from under the wreckage as volunteers rushed to rescue their neighbors.

“There are tens of martyrs [dead] – tens of displaced people were living in this house. The house was bombed without prior warning. As you can see, martyrs are here and there, with body parts hanging on the walls,” Ismail Ouaida, a witness who was helping to recover bodies, said in the video.

The United Nations Human Rights Office said it was “appalled” by one of the deadliest single attacks in nearly three months, calling for a prompt, transparent investigation into the circumstances.

Meanwhile, the local health ministry said that those wounded in the strike could not receive care as doctors had been forced to evacuate the nearby Kamal Adwan Hospital.

“Critical cases without intervention will succumb to their destiny and die,” the ministry said in a statement.

Emergency services in the enclave stopped its operations because of the three-week Israeli assault into northern Gaza. Dr. Eid Sabbah of Kamal Adwan Hospital told Reuters that the destruction of hospitals and lack of medical supplies meant doctors and nurses mostly had no chance of saving people who came in with injuries from airstrikes and gunfire.

The health ministry further reported that the death toll from Israel’s retaliatory air and ground onslaught in Gaza has exceeded 43,000. (Related: Four Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza airstrike, death toll of journalists reaches 182.)

The media agency said the recent strike came a day after Israel’s parliament passed a law to ban the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) from operating inside the country. Israeli officials cited the involvement of a handful of the UNRWA staffers in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack and a few staffers’ membership in Hamas and other armed groups.

IDF says it “did not know Beit Lahiya building was a shelter”

Following a widespread global backlash, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed that the strike was not aimed at collapsing the five-story residential building. According to the IDF, it did not know that the building was used as a shelter.

The IDF official, who agreed to provide details on condition of anonymity, said that the attack was aimed at a binoculars-holding spotter in the building and that the intent was not to destroy the structure.

The military said it is now investigating the incident. However, the IDF official argued that there are discrepancies between the numbers of victims reported by authorities in Gaza and what Israeli intelligence indicates. He did not provide detailed evidence to support his assertion.

United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) said the strike was only one of at least seven mass casualty incidents recently in the enclave. Worse, medical facilities in the area were already struggling to deal with victims.

“Only two… out of 20 health service points and two hospitals, Kamal Adwan and Al Awda, remain functional, although partially, hampering the delivery of life-saving health services,” UNOCHA said.

It added that October has seen very limited food distribution due to severe supply shortages in the Strip as 1.7 million people or 80 percent of the local population did not receive rations.

The Beit Lahiya area had been given an evacuation order earlier in October as the IDF launched a new offensive in northern Gaza.

IsraelCollapse.com contains more stories on Israel’s continued genocidal operations in Gaza.

Watch the video below that talks about a UN rapporteur, who accused Israel of “genocidal violence,” now being deemed antisemitic and unfit for her role by the U.S. ambassador to the UN.

This video is from the Prisoner channel on Brighteon.com.

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Sources include:

Reuters.com

TimesOfIsrael.com

Brighteon.com