Deir Al Bala, Gaza Strip —
At least 22 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on northern Gaza, Palestinian medical officials said.
The Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency services said 11 women and two children were among those killed in a strike against several homes and buildings in the northern town of Beit Lahiya late Saturday. An additional 15 people were injured, and the death toll could rise further.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
Over the past three weeks, Israel has carried out large-scale air and ground attacks in northern Gaza, where it says Hamas militants have reunited. Hundreds of people have been killed and tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled to Gaza City in the latest wave of displacement in the year-long war.
Israel continues to carry out daily airstrikes across Gaza, even as it is at war with the militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon. On Saturday, Israeli warplanes struck Iran, which supports the US-designated terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah, in response to an Iranian ballistic missile attack earlier this month.
The chain reaction has raised fears of an all-out regional war between Israel and the United States against Iran and its proxies, including Yemen’s Houthi rebels and militant groups in Syria and Iraq.
Israel says its attacks on Gaza have targeted only militants and blames Hamas for civilian casualties as the militants are fighting in densely populated areas. . The military rarely comments on individual attacks, which often kill women and children.
The war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants launched a surprise attack on southern Israel. They killed about 1,200 people (mostly civilians) and abducted about 250. Approximately 100 hostages remain in the Gaza Strip, about a third of whom remain in the Gaza Strip. He is believed to have died.
More than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli retaliatory attacks, according to the local health ministry. The statistics do not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but say more than half of the dead were women and children.
The attacks destroyed much of the poor coastal region and forced approximately 90% of the population to flee multiple times. Hundreds of thousands of people have crammed into squalid tent camps along the coast, and hunger is widespread, aid groups say.
