Israeli strike kills dozens in north Gaza town, Gaza Health Ministry says

CAIRO ? At least 93 Palestinians were killed and dozens more wounded in an Israeli strike on a residential building in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya on Tuesday, the Gaza Health Ministry said.

Medics said at least 20 children were among the dead.

"A number of victims are still under the rubble and on the roads, and ambulance and civil defense crews cannot reach them," the territory's Hamas-run Ministry of Health said in a statement.

Later on Tuesday, Ismail Al-Thawabta, the director of the government media office, put the number of fatalities at 93.

More: One year after Hamas invaded Israel on Oct. 7, how far could Gaza war expand?

There was no immediate Israeli comment. The Israeli military has frequently questioned figures on death tolls published by the Hamas media office, saying they were often exaggerated.

Video footage obtained by Reuters showed several bodies wrapped in blankets on the ground outside a bombed four-story building. More bodies and survivors were being retrieved from under the wreckage as neighbors rushed to help with rescue.

"There are tens of martyrs (dead) ? tens of displaced people were living in this house. The house was bombed without prior warning. As you can see, martyrs are here and there, with body parts hanging on the walls," Ismail Ouaida, a witness who was helping to recover bodies, said in the video.

On Monday, the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said around 100,000 people were marooned in Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun without medical or food supplies. Reuters could not verify the number independently.

More: This journalist has been trapped in Gaza for a year. Here's her harrowing story.

The Health Ministry said Tuesday those wounded in the strike could not receive care as doctors had been forced to evacuate the nearby Kamal Adwan Hospital.

"Critical cases without intervention will succumb to their destiny and die," the ministry said in a statement.

Gaza's emergency service said its operations had come to a halt because of the three-week Israeli assault into northern Gaza. Israel says its campaign is to destroy the Palestinian militant group Hamas, whose fighters had returned to the area in the yearlong war.

Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel killed 1,200 people and more than 250 hostages were captured and taken into Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

More: Israeli forces kill 38 people in Khan Younis, storm north Gaza hospital, say medics

Israel bans UNRWA

The death toll from Israel's retaliatory air and ground onslaught in Gaza has exceeded 43,000, the Gaza Health Ministry said.

The Israel-Hamas war has kindled wider conflict in the Middle East, with Israel bombing Lebanon and sending forces into its south to disable Iran-backed Hezbollah, a Hamas ally.

Tuesday's strike came a day after Israel's parliament passed a law to ban the U.N. relief agency UNRWA from operating inside the country, alarming some of Israel's Western allies who fear it will worsen the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Israeli officials cited the involvement of a handful of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees' thousands of staffers in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack and a few staffers' membership in Hamas and other armed groups.

More: U.S. warns Israel to increase humanitarian aid into Gaza or risk losing access to weapons

UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini described the move as "collective punishment."

It was unclear yet how the decision will impact the lives of Palestinians, especially in the Gaza Strip, where the United Nations said most of its 2.3 million people have become internally displaced since the war erupted over a year ago.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: At least 93 dead in Israeli strike on north Gaza, officials say