At least 60 dead in Israeli attack in northern Gaza Strip; Knesset bans UNRWA: NPR

Editor's note: This story contains graphic details of a violent attack.

TEL AVIV, Israel – An Israeli airstrike on a building in northern Gaza killed at least 60 Palestinians and injured others overnight, according to the Gaza Strip Health Ministry. This was one of the deadliest attacks in weeks.

The attack hit a five-story building in the Beit Lahiya area where families of displaced Palestinians were seeking refuge. According to health authorities, at least 25 of those killed were children.

The Israeli military said it was aware of civilian deaths and was “investigating” the incident.

The attack comes at a time when Israeli forces have hampered medical and emergency services in the region and Israel's parliament has voted to ban the main United Nations agency providing aid to Palestinians, UNRWA.

“This attack is another in a recent deadly series of mass casualty incidents in the northern part of the Gaza Strip,” Tor Wennesland, the U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday. “We are witnessing not only a terrible humanitarian nightmare, but also a rapidly increasing disintegration of the prospects for a sustainable solution to this conflict.”

Last week, the Israeli military ordered Gaza Civil Defense first responder teams to leave the area in the northern part of the enclave. This meant there was no one to help retrieve bodies from the rubble or provide first aid.

According to hospital officials, the Israeli military also raided the nearest hospital over the weekend, destroying much of it, including the morgue.

Civilians had to save people alone and bury the dead in the streets.

Freelance photojournalist Islam Ahmed says he was among those who rushed to help after the Israeli airstrike in Beit Lahiya on Monday night. Through voice notes to NPR, he describes the carnage.

“I saw human body parts and naked female corpses on the street. The situation is extremely difficult,” he says. He says he also saw body parts of several dead children.

He and other neighbors tried to dig through the rubble with their hands, he says, without tools or the civil defense teams that would normally conduct search and rescue operations but were prevented from doing so by Israeli forces. “It wasn’t the hands of paramedics or well-trained people, it was the hands of us neighbors,” he says.

“This was a terrible incident with a terrible outcome,” said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller. “We contacted the Israeli government and asked what happened here.”

Following the Hamas-led attack in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, Israel launched its military offensive in the Gaza Strip, vowing to eliminate the Palestinian militant group that killed about 1,200 people and took 250 hostage, according to Israeli officials.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, the Israeli campaign has since killed more than 43,000 Palestinians in Gaza.

Earlier this month, Israel expanded its military campaign in the northern Gaza Strip, saying it was targeting shattered Hamas brigades that were regrouping there.

Israel expressed further international concern about the humanitarian situation in Gaza when its lawmakers passed legislation that could prevent UNRWA from working in Gaza. One of the laws prohibits it from operating in Israel, which controls access to the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, where the agency operates. Israel claims UNRWA had staff involved in the attack in October last year.

The United Nations and independent humanitarian groups say UNRWA is crucial to life-saving operations on the ground in Gaza. “This could potentially be a final blow to humanitarian aid, particularly in Gaza,” said Kate Phillips-Barrasso of the charity Mercy Corps.

Anas Baba contributed to this report from Gaza; Abu Bakr Bashir contributed from London.