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Palestinian health officials said at least 50 people were killed when Israeli air strikes hit a refugee camp in northern Gaza.
Israel said its jets carried out the attack on Tuesday, confirming a senior Hamas commander and several other militants were killed in the strike.
IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said the attack caused the collapse of Hamas’s underground infrastructure, the BBC reports.
Officials at Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital said more than 50 Palestinians were killed and 150 wounded when tons of aerial explosives struck residential dwellings in the heart of the Jabalia refugee camp in urbanised north Gaza.
Footage from the scene, obtained by Reuters, showed a swathe of destruction, with deep bomb craters and gutted, multi-storey cement dwellings as people dug through mounds of rubble with their hands in search of loved ones, dead or alive.
As the battle inside the tiny Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory intensified, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed international calls for a halt to the fighting.
But United Nations and other aid officials warned that a public health catastrophe was engulfing civilians in Gaza, with hospitals struggling to cope with mounting casualties and food, medicine, drinking water and fuel running short.
as it expands a four-day-old ground offensive – after three weeks of aerial bombardment – into Gaza from the north to hit Hamas in retaliation for the Islamist group’s deadly surprise attack into southern Israel on 7 October.
Some of the 240 hostages that Israel says were seized by Hamas that day are believed to be held in the tunnel complex, adding a further complication for the Israeli forces on top of the difficulties of fighting in an urban setting.
Gaza health authorities say that 8,525 people, including 3,542 children, have been killed in Israeli attacks since 7 October.
UN officials say more than 1.4 million of Gaza’s civilian population of about 2.3 million have been made homeless.
About 1,400 people, mainly civilians, were killed in the cross-border Hamas assault on 7 October, Israel says.
Reuters has been unable to independently verify casualty counts.
This is a developing story and this article will be updated.
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