An Israeli airstrike targeting multiple houses and a high-rise residential building in Beit Lahiya, located in northern Gaza, caused numerous casualties on Saturday, according to doctors and officials involved in rescue efforts that are still ongoing. The Hamas media office reported a death toll of at least 87 individuals from the strike. Although official figures have not yet been released by the health ministry, Medway Abbas, a senior official in the ministry, corroborated the numbers presented by Hamas.
Palestinian health authorities have indicated that the ongoing rescue operations are severely hindered by a telecommunications and internet blackout that has persisted for three days. Earlier reports from the Gaza health ministry claimed that Israeli military operations resulted in the deaths of 35 Palestinians across the region on the same day.
The Hamas media office condemned the airstrike as “a war of genocide and ethnic cleansing,” characterizing the events in Beit Lahiya as a “horrifying massacre.” Meanwhile, local residents and medical personnel noted a tightening of the Israeli siege on Jabalia, the largest of Gaza’s eight historical camps, with Israeli forces encircling the area and deploying tanks to neighboring towns such as Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya, while issuing evacuation orders to the local populace.
Israeli officials have asserted that the evacuation orders are intended to separate Hamas fighters from civilian populations, denying any systemic plan to clear civilians from Jabalia or other northern regions. However, sources from Jabalia reported that Israeli troops had besieged several shelters that housed displaced families, leading to incidents where dozens of men were detained.
Footage circulating on social media, which Reuters could not independently verify, depicted groups of Palestinian men seated beside a tank while being escorted by soldiers to an assembly site. In addition, health and medical officials reported incidents of airstrikes targeting houses and besieging hospitals, impeding the delivery of food and medical supplies in an apparent effort to force the population to vacate the camp.
Health officials revealed their refusal to comply with Israeli military orders to evacuate hospitals or abandon critically ill patients, underscoring the dire conditions faced by medical facilities in northern Gaza. “Hospitals in northern Gaza are suffering from severe shortages of medical supplies and personnel and are overwhelmed by the influx of casualties,” explained Hussam Abu Safiya. “We are currently faced with making difficult decisions about prioritizing care for the wounded, which has resulted in some fatalities due to our inability to assist them promptly.”
In a separate development earlier in the day, Israeli aircraft dropped leaflets over southern Gaza displaying an image of the deceased Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, accompanied by the message: “Hamas will no longer rule Gaza,” a sentiment echoed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This measure coincided with reports from Palestinian health officials indicating that Israeli strikes had caused at least 108 deaths across the Gaza Strip on Saturday.
The leaflets, written in Arabic, contained a warning: “Whoever drops the weapon and hands over the hostages will be allowed to leave and live in peace,” referencing a recent statement made by Netanyahu following Sinwar’s death by Israeli troops in Rafah near the Egyptian border.
The ongoing conflict has wrought devastation across Gaza, with reports indicating more than 42,500 Palestinian fatalities, and another 10,000 casualties believed to be unaccounted for under the rubble, according to health authorities in the region.
In the central Gaza Strip’s Al-Maghzai camp, an Israeli strike killed 11 people, while yet another strike in the nearby Nuseirat camp resulted in the deaths of four additional individuals. Also, five persons were killed in two separate strikes in the southern Gaza cities of Khan Younis and Rafah, as medics reported. Later on Saturday, strikes in Nuseirat claimed three more lives. On Friday night, 33 individuals—predominantly women and children—were killed, and 85 others injured as Israeli airstrikes razed at least three homes in Jabalia.