Israel unleashes strikes on homes in north Gaza as it extends onslaught

The Israeli military bombed at least five crowded homes in northern Gaza early on Thursday with many casualties, health officials said, as troops deepened an incursion along the territory's northern edge.

Rescue operations were underway as many people remained missing or trapped under the rubble, medics said. Hamas' media wing put the number of fatalities at 57 but there was no official figure immediately from the Gaza health ministry.

The Israeli military made no immediate comment.

Earlier on Wednesday, Gaza health officials said Israeli military strikes across the enclave killed at least 48 people.

Gaza medics said the incidents included attacks on houses and a school sheltering displaced people in central Gaza, bombing of a hospital in northern Gaza and air strikes on the humanitarian-designated area of Al-Mawasi and Rafahin southern Gaza.

Palestinian and U.N. officials say no place in the enclave is safe.

Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, one of three medical facilities barely operational in the besieged northern area, said the hospital "was bombed across all its departments without warning, as we were trying to save an injured person in the intensive care unit" on Tuesday.

"Following the arrest of 45 members of the medical and surgical staff and the denial of entry to a replacement team, we are now losing wounded patients daily who could have survived if resources were available," he told Reuters by text message.

"Unfortunately, food and water are not allowed to enter, and not even a single ambulance is permitted access to the north."

There were 85 injured people, including children and women, at the hospital, six in the ICU. Seventeen children had arrived with signs of malnutrition as a result of food shortages. One man died of dehydration a day ago, Abu Safiya added.

Israeli operations in Gaza have focused for weeks on the northern edge of the territory, where the military has laid siege to three major towns and ordered residents to flee.

Residents in the three towns - Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun - said Israeli forces had blown up dozens of houses. Palestinians say Israel appears determined to depopulate the area permanently to create a buffer zone along the northern edge of Gaza, which Israel denies.

Israel's 13-month campaign in Gaza has killed nearly 44,000 people and displaced nearly all the enclave's population at least once, according to Gaza officials.

The war was launched in response to an attack by Hamas-led fighters who killed 1,200 people and captured more than 250 hostages in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has said.

Months of attempts to negotiate a ceasefire have yielded scant progress and negotiations are now on hold, with mediator Qatar having suspended its efforts until the sides are prepared to make concessions.

Although Israel's assaults have been focused on Gaza's north since last month, its strikes have continued across the territory.

In the Sabra suburb of Gaza City, the Palestinian civil emergency service said an Israeli airstrike targeted one of its teams during a rescue operation, killing one staff member and wounding three others.

The death in Sabra raised the number of civil emergency service members killed over the last 13 months to 87, the service said.

There was no immediate Israeli comment on the incidents.

Speaking during a visit to Gaza on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas would not rule the Palestinian enclave after the war had ended and that Israel had destroyed the Islamist group's military capabilities.

Netanyahu also said Israel had not given up trying to locate the 101 remaining hostages believed to be still in the enclave, and he offered a $5 million reward for the return of each one.

Hamas wants a deal that ends the war, while Netanyahu has vowed the war can end only once Hamas is eradicated.