DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — An Israeli strike on the central Gaza Strip killed a family of eight, Palestinian medical officials said Sunday, as Israeli forces battled fighters in the territory’s north and airstrikes in pursuit of Hezbollah destroyed a century-old market in southern Lebanon.
The strike in Gaza late Saturday hit a home in the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing parents and their six children, ages 8 to 23, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in nearby Deir al-Balah, where the bodies were taken. An Associated Press reporter counted the bodies.
“They were safe, while he was sleeping, and he and all his children died,” said the man’s brother, Mohammad Abu Ghali. Women stroked the body bags, in tears.
A year into the war with Hamas, Israel continues to strike what it says are fighter targets in Gaza nearly every day. The military says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames their deaths on Hamas and other armed groups because they operate in densely populated areas.
Israel is now at war with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and is expected to strike Iran in retaliation for a missile attack earlier this month, though it has not said how or when. Iran supports both groups and has said it will respond to any Israeli attack.
Bodies rot in the streets in northern Gaza
In northern Gaza, Israeli air and ground forces have been attacking Jabaliya, where the military says fighters have regrouped. Over the past year, Israeli forces have repeatedly returned to the built-up refugee camp, which dates back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation, and other areas.
Israel has ordered the full evacuation of northern Gaza, including Gaza City. An estimated 400,000 people remain in the north after a mass evacuation ordered in the war’s opening weeks. Palestinians fear Israel intends to permanently depopulate the north to establish military bases or Jewish settlements there.
The United Nations says no food has entered northern Gaza since Oct. 1.
The military confirmed that hospitals were included in evacuation orders but said it had not set a timetable and was working with local authorities to facilitate patient transfers.
Dr. Mohamed Salha, director of Al-Awda Hospital, said it was among three hospitals in the north that received small shipments of fuel that would last a matter of days. He said they need medical supplies for the casualties that stream in, requiring 12 to 15 surgeries each day at his facility.
Fares Abu Hamza, an official with the Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency service, said the bodies of a “large number of martyrs” remain uncollected from the streets and under rubble.
“We are unable to reach them,” he told the AP, saying dogs are eating some remains.
The war began when Hamas stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. Around 100 hostages are still held in Gaza, a third believed to be dead.
Israel’s bombardment and its ground invasion of Gaza have killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, and left much of the territory in ruins. The ministry doesn’t distinguish between fighters or civilians, but says women and children make up over half the deaths. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.
Israeli airstrikes destroy Ottoman-era market in Lebanon
Israeli airstrikes destroyed an Ottoman-era market in Lebanon’s southern city of Nabatiyeh overnight, killing at least one person and wounding four more. Lebanon’s Civil Defense said it battled fires in 12 residential buildings and 40 shops in the market, which dates back to 1910.
“Our livelihoods have all been leveled,” said Ahmad Fakih, whose shop was destroyed.
The Israeli military said it struck Hezbollah targets, without elaborating.
Rescuers searched pancaked buildings as Israeli drones buzzed overhead. Nabatiyeh was one of dozens of communities across southern Lebanon warned by Israel to evacuate.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah, allied with Hamas, began firing rockets into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, drawing retaliatory airstrikes. The conflict dramatically escalated in September with Israeli strikes that killed Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and most of his senior commanders. Israel launched a ground operation earlier this month.
In a separate incident, the Lebanese Red Cross said paramedics were searching for casualties in a house destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon on Sunday when a second strike left four paramedics with concussions and damaged two ambulances.
It said the operation had been coordinated with U.N. peacekeepers, who informed the Israeli side. There was no immediate Israeli military comment.
At least 2,255 people have been killed in Lebanon since the start of the conflict, including more than 1,400 people since September, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were Hezbollah fighters. At least 54 people have been killed in rocket attacks on Israel, nearly half of them soldiers.
Netanyahu calls UN peacekeepers ‘human shield’ for Hezbollah
International criticism is growing after Israeli forces have repeatedly fired on first responders and U.N. peacekeepers since the start of the ground operation in Lebanon. The military has accused Hezbollah of using ambulances to carry fighters and weapons and says Hezbollah operates in the vicinity of the peacekeepers, without providing evidence.
The peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL said Israeli tanks forcibly entered the gates of one of its positions early Sunday morning and destroyed the main gate, calling it a “further flagrant violation of international law.” Israeli strikes have wounded five peacekeepers in recent days. Israel’s military made no immediate comment.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called for UNIFIL to heed Israel’s warnings to evacuate, accusing them of “providing a human shield” to Hezbollah.
“We regret the injury to the UNIFIL soldiers, and we are doing everything in our power to prevent this injury. But the simple and obvious way to ensure this is simply to get them out of the danger zone,” he said in a video addressed to the U.N. secretary-general, who has been banned from entering Israel.
Israel has long accused the United Nations of being biased against it, and relations have plunged further since the start of the war in Gaza. Israel has accused the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees of being infiltrated by Hamas, allegations the agency denies.
Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut and Natalie Melzer in Tel Aviv, Israel contributed to this report.
