At least 87 Palestinians were killed by an Israeli strike on residential buildings in Beit Lahia, a city in northern Gaza, CNN reported on Sunday.
The report cited Gaza’s Health Ministry, which said the dead included 27 bodies that had been retrieved and 60 bodies still stuck under the rubble. At least 40 people were wounded by the strike, and some are in very critical condition.
Footage of the aftermath and at the Kadwan hospital, where the casualties were taken, showed that children were among the dead. An unidentified Palestinian man told CNN that the buildings were sheltering displaced families.
“We call on the international community to end the war,” he said. “We beg you, we are civilians with no connection to anyone. We demand that you stop the war.”
The massive strike on Beit Lahia comes as Israeli soldiers are attempting to carry out an ethnic cleansing plan, known as the “general’s plan,” in northern Gaza, which has been under a tightening siege for over two weeks and cut off from food, medicine, water, and other basic necessities.
The Israeli military has ordered the evacuation of three hospitals in northern Gaza, but the staff refused to leave so they could continue to treat their patients. Gaza’s Health Ministry said Saturday that at least two patients have died at the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahia due to the Israeli siege.
“The death of two patients inside the Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, as a result of the hospital’s siege and the power outage and medical supplies,” the ministry said. “The occupation has imposed a severe siege on hospitals in northern Gaza since midnight last night, as the Indonesian Hospital was bombed, and Al-Awda and Kamal Adwan Hospitals were besieged at the same time.”
