Israeli air attacks across the Gaza Strip killed at least 38 Palestinians on Wednesday, most of them in a strike on a house in Beit Lahiya on the northern edge of the enclave, medics said.
The Beit Lahiya strike killed at least 22 people, including women and children, health officials said. Relatives listed the names of those killed on social media.
More than 30 people were living in the multi-storey building before it was struck, and several family members remained missing as rescue operations continued through the morning, the Palestinian WAFA news agency said.
The Israeli military told Reuters it had carried out a strike targeting Hamas militants near the Kamal Adwan Hospital, which is located between Beit Lahiya and Jabalia, towns on the northern fringe of Gaza under Israeli bombardments for two months.
In nearby Beit Hanoun, also part of the area under attack, medics said an Israeli airstrike killed and wounded several people without giving an exact death toll.
Rescue workers said several people remain trapped under rubble.
The death toll from more than 14 months of Israeli attacks on Gaza rose to 44,786 people, the Palestinian health ministry said. Source: AAP / Hatem Ali/AP
Earlier on Wednesday, Israel killed at least seven Palestinians and injured several others in an airstrike on a house in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, medics told Reuters.
The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service and medics said nine other people were killed in three separate Israeli airstrikes on two houses and a crowd in Gaza City, including journalist Eman Al-Shanti, her husband, and three of their children.
Al-Shanti was the 193rd journalist killed by Israel since 7 October 2023, the Palestinian Union of Journalists said.
Israel claims two commanders killed
In a statement, the Israeli military said it killed in separate airstrikes two senior, armed Hamas commanders who had taken a leading role in the militant group’s attack on Israel.
It said one of the two, Fahmi Selmi, was a senior elite unit commander in Hamas who it said had operated from inside a former school in Gaza City’s Zeitoun suburb at the time of the airstrike, whose timing it did not disclose.
The military said the second man, Salah Dahman, who had served as the head of Hamas’ paragliding unit in the Jabalia area, had been killed in an airstrike last week.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Israeli military said two rockets had been fired from the central Gaza Strip into Israel but fell in open areas and caused no injuries.
Citing rocket launches from the area, the Israeli military said it ordered residents in the Al-Maghazi camp in central Gaza to evacuate.
Palestinian and United Nations officials say there are no safe areas in the widely devastated territory.
Hamas-led militants’ attack in Israel marked a turning point in the long-standing regional conflict, escalating to become the largest and longest Israeli military operation in Gaza.
According to Israeli tallies, 1,200 people were killed, and more than 250 hostages were taken in the Hamas attack on October 7 last year.
It triggered Israel’s military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, which has killed more than 44,800 Palestinians and displaced most of the 2.3 million population, Gaza health authorities say.
