Dozens killed in Israeli strike on multistorey building in northern Gaza, say officials

Dozens of Palestinians have been killed or injured by an Israeli strike on a multistorey residential building in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza, local medics and officials in the territory have said.
The government media office in Gaza, which is run by Hamas, put the number of those killed at 72. It said the strike on Sunday morning hit a residential building that housed six families.
There was no independent confirmation of the reports or the reported death toll, which followed intensive Israeli bombardment of targets across Gaza in recent days. The Palestinian Civil Emergency said around 70 people were living in the property.
Earlier, Palestinian medical officials said Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip killed 12 people, as the Israel-Hamas war grinds on with no end in sight.
The air strikes killed six people in Nuseirat and another four in Bureij, two built-up refugee camps in central Gaza. Another two people were killed in a strike on Gaza’s main north-south highway, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balah, which received all 12 bodies.
Israel is also at war with the Hizbullah militant group in Lebanon, where its ground troops have advanced farther to the north.
Israel’s air offensive has continued with strikes in central Beirut – the first in over a month – and elsewhere reported on Sunday morning.
Mohammed Afif, the head of Hizbullah’s media office, who has been the public face of the group throughout the war, was killed in a strike on a Baath Party centre in Ras al-Nabaa, central Beirut, that collapsed the building’s top floor.
Three attacks were reported on separate locations in the Lebanese capital’s southern suburbs, a Hizbullah stronghold, sending thick clouds of white smoke over the targets.
There were also reports of strikes in several other areas of the country, including the port city of Tyre.
Police in Israel, meanwhile, arrested three suspects after flares were fired at prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s private residence in the coastal city of Caesarea.
Authorities said Mr Netanyahu and his family were not at the residence when two flares were fired at it overnight, and there were no injuries.
A drone launched by Hizbullah struck the residence last month, also when Mr Netanyahu and his family were away.
The police did not provide details about the suspects behind the flares, but officials pointed to domestic political critics of Mr Netanyahu.
Mr Netanyahu has faced months of mass protests over his handling of the hostage crisis unleashed by the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7th, 2023, which ignited the ongoing war in Gaza.
Critics blame Mr Netanyahu for the security and intelligence failures that allowed the attack to happen and for not reaching a deal with Hamas to release scores of hostages still held inside Gaza.
Israelis rallied again in Tel Aviv on Saturday night to demand a ceasefire deal to return them.
The war between Israel and Hamas began after Palestinian militants stormed into Israel in October 2023, killing about 1,200 people – mostly civilians – and abducting 250 others. Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, about a third of them believed to be dead.
The health ministry in Gaza says around 43,800 Palestinians have been killed in the war.
The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but has said women and children make up more than half the fatalities.
Around 90 per cent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million Palestinians have been displaced, and large areas of the territory have been flattened by Israeli bombardment and ground operations.
The UN Security Council’s 10 elected members on Thursday circulated a draft resolution demanding “an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire” in Gaza. The US, Israel’s closest ally, holds the key to whether the council adopts the resolution. – AP