Deadly Israeli attack in Gaza amid anger over ban on UN agencies

Israel’s main ally and supporter, the United States, called the attack – which killed a large number of children – “horrific.”

The bombing came as Israel faces international backlash after parliament voted overwhelmingly to ban UNRWA, the main United Nations aid agency that works with Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

Palestinian rescuers and desperate relatives gathered around the demolished five-storey block in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza.

A charred body with long hair hung from a top-floor window and bodies wrapped in blankets lined the street as stunned relatives tried to identify their loved ones.

“The number of martyrs in the massacre of the Abu Nasr family home in Beit Lahia has risen to 93 martyrs, and about 40 are still missing under the rubble,” Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for Gaza’s civil defense, told AFP .

The Israeli military said it was “investigating reports of the attack.” It previously reported that its forces had killed 40 Hamas fighters and lost four soldiers in Gaza.

– ‘Women and children’ –

“The explosion happened at night and at first I thought it was shelling, but when I went outside after dawn I saw people pulling bodies, limbs and wounded people from under the rubble,” said Rabie al-Shandagly, 30.

“Most of the victims are women and children, and people are trying to save the injured, but there are no hospitals or proper medical care,” he told AFP.

Washington expressed deep concern.

“This was a horrific incident with a horrific outcome,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.

“We have contacted the government of Israel to ask what happened here.”

The Israeli army has been carrying out a large-scale air and ground assault in northern Gaza since October 6 – mainly around Jabalia, Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun – and says it aims to prevent Hamas’s realignment.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled the area, more than 12 months after the war sparked by Hamas militants who launched a bloody cross-border attack on Israel on October 7 last year.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 43,061 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run Health Ministry, which the United Nations consider reliable and prompt warnings of a humanitarian catastrophe.

International concerns increased after Israel’s parliament voted overwhelmingly to ban UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

Israel strictly controls all humanitarian aid shipments to Gaza, and UNRWA has been providing essential aid, education and health care in the Palestinian territories and the diaspora for more than 70 years.

– ‘Devastating consequences’ –

“There is a deep bond between the terrorist organization (Hamas) and UNRWA, and Israel cannot tolerate that,” MP Yuli Edelstein said in parliament as he presented the proposal.

But several of Israel’s Western allies, including the United States, expressed deep concern.

Miller reiterated a warning to Israel that Washington could withhold military aid without improvements in humanitarian aid to Gaza.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said London was “deeply concerned” and the French Foreign Ministry said it “very strongly regrets” the law.

Germany, a staunch defender of Israel’s security, warned that it would “effectively make UNRWA’s work in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem impossible.”

UN chief Antonio Guterres said the Israeli law could have “devastating consequences” if implemented.

In a letter he sent to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, seen by AFP, Guterres argued that under international law, an occupying power must implement mechanisms to help the people living in that occupied territory.

“If Israel is not in a position to meet such needs, it has a duty to permit and facilitate the activities of the United Nations,” Guterres wrote.

Israel’s neighbor Jordan, where UNRWA offices are also located, condemned the ban as a “continuation of Israel’s frantic attempts to politically assassinate the UN agency.”

Netanyahu said on social media that Israel was “ready” to continue providing aid to Gaza “in a way that does not threaten Israel’s security.”

– Hezbollah appoints new leader –

During the October 7 attack, Palestinian militants seized 251 hostages, including soldiers and civilians, 97 of whom remain in Gaza. The Israeli army says 34 of them are dead.

The attack resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

In Lebanon, Israeli tanks entered the outskirts of the village of Khiam, their deepest incursion yet in the ground operation they launched against Hezbollah last month, state media reported.

Late on Tuesday, the Health Ministry said at least eight people were killed in an Israeli attack on Sarafand in southern Lebanon.

It also reported six deaths in an earlier attack on Haret Saida, near the main southern city of Sidon.

Hezbollah, meanwhile, has announced that it has chosen deputy chief Naim Qassem to succeed Hassan Nasrallah as leader following his death in an Israeli attack on South Beirut last month.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant posted on X that Qassem was a “temporary appointment” that would not last long. In a separate post in Hebrew, he added that the “countdown has begun.”

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s website states that Qassem’s appointment would “strengthen the will of the resistance.”

In addition, the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, said its headquarters in southern Lebanon had been hit by a rocket fired “probably by Hezbollah or an affiliated group”. Austria said eight of its soldiers were injured.

At least 1,750 people have been killed in Lebanon since September 23, when fighting escalated as Israel launched an air and ground offensive against Hezbollah, which had carried out rocket attacks in support of Hamas, according to an AFP count based on official figures.