The Palestinian Ministry of Health announced on Sunday that Israeli raids on several homes in the northern Gaza Strip overnight led to the killing or missing of at least 87 people.
Forty other people were injured in the raids on the town of Beit Lahia, which was one of the first targets of the Israeli ground invasion about a year ago.
The strikes came as the United States investigates the unauthorized disclosure of classified documents assessing Israel’s plans to attack Iran, according to three US officials. A fourth said the documents appeared legitimate.
Documents attributed to the US Geospatial Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, which are marked “top secret,” indicate that Israel is building military capabilities to carry out a military attack in response to the ballistic missile attack launched by Iran on October 1.
The US officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
The United States urged Israel to push for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip after the assassination of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar earlier this week. However, neither Israel nor Hamas have shown renewed interest in such a deal after months of negotiations that collapsed in August.
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Iran supports Hamas and the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon, where year-long escalating tensions erupted into all-out war last month. Israel sent ground forces to Lebanon in early October.
The Israeli army did not immediately comment on the raids in Beit Lahia. It said it “continues to operate throughout the Gaza Strip, with air strikes and ground operations.”
Among the dead were two parents and their four children, in addition to a woman, her son, her daughter-in-law, and their four children, according to Rahim Khader, a paramedic. He said the strike destroyed a multi-storey building and at least four neighboring houses.
The influx of wounded following the raids exacerbated the “already catastrophic situation of the health care system” in the northern Gaza Strip, said Mounir al-Bursh, director-general of the Ministry of Health, in a message posted on the social media network X.
Internet access was cut off in the northern Gaza Strip late Saturday and was not restored until midday Sunday, making it difficult to gather information about the strikes.
Over the past two weeks, Israel has carried out a large-scale operation in the Jabalia refugee camp, also located in the northern Gaza Strip. The army claims that it launched the operation against Hamas activists who gathered there.
The north has already suffered some of the heaviest devastation during the war, and has been besieged by Israeli forces since late last year, following a deadly Hamas attack on Israel.
Israel ordered all residents of the northern third of the Gaza Strip, including Gaza City, to evacuate to the south in the first weeks of the war, and repeated those instructions earlier this month. Most residents fled last year, but an estimated 400,000 people remain in the north.
Palestinians who fled the north at the beginning of the war are still not allowed to return.
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