Israeli Strike in North Gaza Kills Dozens, Rescue Group Says

Dozens of people have been killed in Israeli airstrikes in northern Gaza and more were trapped under debris, according to emergency rescue workers in the territory, as a weekslong Israeli offensive continued to isolate the area.

Palestinian Civil Defense in Gaza, an emergency response group, said it believed that more than 75 people had been killed in strikes in Beit Lahia, a farming town north of Gaza City, although it said it had been unable to reach the site because of an Israeli blockade. Civil Defense does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its death tolls, but it said that families were among the dead.

“Entire families were wiped out in northern Gaza and we don’t know anything about them,” the group said in a statement on Friday night. “And there are survivors who remain under the rubble for a long time, and there is no civil defense to rescue them.”

Rescue workers have been unable to operate in northern Gaza since an Israeli offensive began almost two months ago. Internet and phone service to the area has also been unreliable in recent days, leaving both rescue workers and the families of those killed and missing with few ways to obtain reliable information.

The Israeli military dismissed reports of airstrikes in Beit Lahia as “false Hamas propaganda” on Saturday, but said it was continuing its “counterterrorism activity against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.”

The military “operates following precise and credible intelligence against Hamas terrorists and terror targets, not against the civilians in Gaza,” the military said in a statement. “We emphasize that the area in question is an active war zone.”