The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza said at least 87 people were killed and more than 40 injured in Saturday’s Israeli airstrike on the town of Beit Lahiya in the northern Palestinian enclave.
The ministry said a number of people were still under the rubble after a residential area was hit.
Israel said it was checking casualty reports, but added that earlier lower figures published by Hamas were “exaggerated.” In recent weeks, the Israeli army has carried out intensive bombings on northern Gaza, saying it wanted to prevent Hamas fighters from regrouping there.
A senior UN official warned that the “nightmare in Gaza is intensifying” and that the war “must stop now”.
‘There are gruesome scenes happening in the north [Gaza] Escape amid conflict, brutal Israeli attacks and a worsening humanitarian crisis,” said Tor Wennesland, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process.
In a statement on Sunday, the Hamas-led Health Ministry in Gaza revised the death toll following the Israeli attack on Beit Lahia from 73 to 87.
The previous casualty figures were announced by Hamas late on Saturday.
The ministry also said that ambulance crews were unable to reach the scene of the Israeli attack.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) described the attack as a “precision strike” on a “Hamas terror target.” It told the BBC it was “doing everything possible to prevent harm to civilians”.
Dr. Eid Sabbah, director of nursing at Kamal Adwan Hospital, said the Israeli attack in Beit Lahia had completely destroyed several buildings, with “more than four, five residential blocks… razed to the ground.”
The attacks targeted an entire residential square, Dr. Sabbah said, between the Abu Yidian roundabout and the Al Qassam Mosque.
Dr. Sabbah added that dozens of people were killed and many injured “some of whom reached hospital, some of whom remain under the rubble.”
He urged an end to the “siege” on hospitals in northern Gaza and “for life to return to normal… before it is too late, before our nation is wiped out.”
Since then, several images – including the one below – have emerged on social media showing the treatment of the injured from Beit Lahia at Kamal Adwan Hospital.
The BBC has confirmed that the footage came from the hospital.
Israel launched a renewed military offensive in northern Gaza in early October, saying it is trying to prevent Hamas from regrouping in the area.
In particular, Israeli forces surrounded and bombed the densely populated Jabalia area, where an urban refugee camp is located. At least 33 people were killed in an attack on Friday.
Humanitarian groups have warned that virtually no aid has entered the area in recent weeks. Israel’s own statistics show that aid deliveries to Gaza as a whole have collapsed compared to the same period in September.
On Saturday, the UN’s top humanitarian official, Joyce Msuya, said Palestinians in northern Gaza are suffering “unspeakable horrors” and called for a stop to these “atrocities”.
Israel has repeatedly denied preventing humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, but on Tuesday the US said it must increase access within 30 days or risk cutting off some US military aid.
At least 42,603 people have been killed and 99,795 injured in Gaza since the war began last October, Hamas-led authorities say.
The war began after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 to Gaza as hostages. In response, Israel vowed to destroy Hamas and launched a ground offensive into the enclave.
Elsewhere, Israel continued its airstrikes on the Lebanese group Hezbollah in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Sunday.
In a statement, the IDF said: “Earlier this morning, the IAF [Israel’s air force] carried out an intelligence-led attack on a command center of Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters and an underground weapons workshop in Beirut.”
It added that several steps have been taken to “reduce the likelihood of civilian casualties,” including “providing advance warning to residents.”
The IDF also reported that approximately 160 rockets were fired from Lebanon into northern Israel.
Meanwhile, the Lebanese army said three of its soldiers were killed after a military vehicle was hit by an Israeli airstrike in Nabatieh, southern Lebanon.
Israel has not yet commented.
The Lebanese army has historically stayed out of cross-border clashes between Israel and Hezbollah, but since fighting escalated last month, a number of its troops have been killed in Israeli attacks.
Hezbollah – a powerful militant group in Lebanon – says it fired on Israeli positions in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza.
Both Hezbollah and Hamas are supported by Iran.
