An Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza kills 20 people, Palestinian officials said

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — An Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza has killed at least 20 people, mostly women and children, Palestinian officials said Tuesday, as Israel conducts a nearly month-long air and ground operation in the pre-existing territory the most isolated and devastated part of the territory.

According to Hossam Abu Safiya, director of, the strike late Monday hit a house in the town of Beit Lahiya, near the border with Israel, where several displaced families were seeking refuge which have recently been raided and are barely functioning Kamal Adwan Hospital, which received the injured.

The Israeli military said it had targeted an arms depot from which a militant had been operating and that it had taken “numerous steps to reduce the risk of injury to civilians.”

The dead included eight women and six children, according to a list from Gaza's Health Ministry's emergency services. Separate attacks elsewhere in Gaza According to health authorities, another ten people died early Tuesday.

Israel launched the offensive in the north after saying Hamas militants had regrouped there. The army has returned to several areas of the Gaza Strip several times after previous operations, while Hamas continues to carry out hit-and-run attacks on troops and occasionally fire rockets at Israel.

The military has ordered the complete evacuation of Beit Lahiya, the nearby town of Beit Hanoun and the Jabaliya urban refugee camp and has allowed almost no humanitarian aid into the area for over a month. That has drew rebukes from the Biden administrationwhich has warned that US laws could force it to cut military aid to Israel if no further aid is allowed.

Tens of thousands of people fled to nearby Gaza City in 2019 the latest wave of displacement within the besieged area. Around 90% of the 2.3 million inhabitants fled, often several times, during the war.

The region's three hospitals were largely inaccessible due to the fighting and the use of ambulances was suspended. Last month, Israeli troops raided Kamal Adwan Hospital, saying Hamas militants had taken refuge there. Palestinian health authorities denied this claim.

The offensive has raised fears among Palestinians that Israel is implementing it a surrender-or-starve plan For the northern Gaza Strip, former generals had suggested civilians would be deported, aid would be cut off and anyone left would be considered a fighter.

The Israeli military has denied receiving such orders, but the government has not said whether it is adopting all or part of the plan.

Palestinian officials said a separate wave of Israeli attacks killed 10 people, including four children and two women, early Tuesday.

According to the Health Ministry's emergency services, a strike hit a house in the Tufah neighborhood of Gaza City, killing two children and their parents. Two other children were injured, it was said.

In the central town of Zuweida, an Israeli airstrike hit a tent where a displaced family was taking refuge and killed four people, including a mother and her two children, in the nearby town of Deir al-Balah, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. Another attack hit a house in Deir al-Balah, killing two people, the hospital said. An Associated Press journalist counted the bodies in the hospital morgue.

The Israeli military says it only targets militants and accuses them of hiding among civilians. Individual attacks, in which women and children are often killed, are rarely commented on.

The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking another 250 people hostage. There are still around 100 prisoners in the Gaza Strip, around a third of whom are believed to be dead.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, over 43,000 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli retaliatory offensive. The number of casualties is not differentiated between civilians and combatants, but it is said that over half of those killed were women and children.

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Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Natalie Melzer contributed in Tel Aviv, Israel.

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