66 killed in airstrike on residential block near Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahia

At least 66 Palestinians, mostly women and children, were killed, and around 100 were injured in the early hours of Thursday in an Israeli airstrike that targeted a residential block near the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza, according to the Palestinian News and Information Agency (Wafa).

The strike is the latest in a series of attacks that have killed and displaced hundreds of Palestinian civilians since Israel launched a brutal assault on several northern Gaza areas, including Jabalia and Beit Lahia.

The hospital’s director told Mada Masr that Kamal Adwan’s medical staff rescued the injured themselves, as Israeli forces have barred civil defense teams from operating in northern Gaza for nearly a month. Some of the wounded were treated at the site, the director said, while others were carried to the hospital due to the lack of ambulances. Several remain trapped under the rubble, with the equipment necessary to conduct search and rescue operations unavailable.

Mahmoud Qeshta, an eyewitness, also told Mada Masr that while civilians and medical workers managed to rescue some of the injured, they were unable to retrieve others. He described audible cries for help from beneath the rubble. 

Many bodies were recovered in pieces, including those of children, while some were found suspended on the walls of buildings destroyed in the strike, said Qeshta.

The Kamal Adwan Hospital has been under siege for several days, with a United Nations official noting earlier this week that the Israeli military blocked vehicles from delivering aid to Beit Lahia, where the hospital is located.

Israel launched another airstrike on the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, several kilometers east in Gaza City, targeting a six-story residential building. According to Wafa, at least 22 Palestinians, including 10 children, were killed. The search is still ongoing for victims and survivors trapped under the rubble.

In southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, Israeli forces killed seven Palestinians when they struck a tent housing displaced individuals on Wednesday in Mawasi, according to Wafa. On Thursday, Al-Aqsa Radio reported another strike in eastern Khan Younis that killed four more Palestinians.

In central Gaza, two Palestinians were killed on Thursday when an Israeli drone dropped a bomb on a group of civilians in the Nuseirat camp, Wafa reported. Meanwhile, five others were injured when Israeli forces struck a tent housing displaced people west of Deir al-Balah, according to Al-Araby Television.

The Gaza Health Ministry reported on Thursday that Israeli forces committed five massacres against Gaza’s families in the past 24 hours (as of the time of reporting), killing at least 71 people and injuring 176, according to hospital admission records. The total death toll since the onset of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip has risen to 44,056, with 104,268 injuries.

Meanwhile, the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, announced on Thursday that it had targeted an Israeli Merkava tank with a tandem shell west of the Jabalia camp in northern Gaza. The group also stated that they had engaged with an Israeli force in close combat in central Beit Lahia, killing all 15 soldiers at point-blank range.