An Israeli strike in northern Gaza killed at least 60 people, officials said

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip. At least 60 people, more than half of them women and children, were killed in an Israeli strike on a five-story building housing Palestinians on Tuesday morning, Gaza’s health ministry said.

Also, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said it had chosen Sheikh Naim Kassem to succeed longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike last month. Hezbollah vowed to continue Nasrallah’s policies “until victory is achieved.”

Israel has also faced backlash after passing legislation that would have severely limited the UN agency for Palestinian refugees in the Palestinian territories. The agency, known as UNRWA, is the largest aid provider in Gaza. Israel has long accused him of links with militants, but he denies the accusations.

A representative of the UN children’s agency said the decision “means that a new way of killing children has been found”.

The new leader of Hezbollah promised to continue the fight against Israel

Hezbollah said in a statement that the decision-making Shura Council had chosen Qassem, who served as Nasrallah’s deputy leader for more than three decades, as its new secretary general.

Qasem, 71, a founding member of the militant group formed after Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, served as its leader. He made several televised speeches in which he pledged that Hezbollah would continue to fight despite a series of setbacks.

Hezbollah launched a missile attack on Israel, prompting a response, after a surprise attack by Hamas from Gaza on October 7, 2023, which triggered the war there. Iran, which supports both groups, also traded directly with Israel in April and again this month.

Tensions with Hezbollah rose in September, when Israel launched a wave of heavy airstrikes that killed Nasrallah and most of his senior commanders. Israel launched a ground invasion of Lebanon in early October.

Hezbollah fired dozens of rockets into northern Israel on Tuesday, killing at least one person in the northern city of Maalot Tarshiha, authorities said.

The strike in northern Gaza occurred during a large-scale Israeli operation there

Although the focus has shifted to Lebanon and Iran in recent weeks, Israel continues to conduct a major operation in northern Gaza and carry out airstrikes throughout the territory.

Dr. Marwan al-Hams, director of the field hospitals department of the Gaza Ministry of Health, announced the casualties of the strike on Tuesday in the northern city of Beit Lahiya at a press conference. According to him, 17 more people are considered missing.

The ministry’s emergency services said at least 12 women and 20 children, including infants, were among the dead. The dead included a mother and her five children, some of them adults, and a second mother with six children, according to a preliminary casualty list provided by emergency services.

There was no comment from the Israeli military, which has been conducting an operation in northern Gaza for more than three weeks, targeting cells of Hamas militants who have regrouped there.

Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya, director of nearby Kamal Advan Hospital, said it was overwhelmed by a wave of wounded from the strike. Israeli troops raided a medical facility over the weekend, detaining dozens of doctors.

The military said it had detained dozens of Hamas militants in a raid on Kamal Advan, the latest in a series of hospital raids since the start of the war.

The Israeli military has repeatedly struck shelters for displaced people in recent months, saying it was targeting Palestinian militants and trying to avoid harming civilians. Women and children often died during the strikes.

Israel’s latest major operation in northern Gaza, centered on the Jabalia refugee camp, has killed hundreds of people and driven tens of thousands from their homes in another wave of mass displacement in more than a year of war on the tiny coastal territory.

The military said on Tuesday that four more soldiers had been killed in fighting in northern Gaza, bringing the death toll since the start of the operation to 16, including a colonel. The military says it has killed dozens of militants without providing evidence, while Hamas does not release its casualties.

Israel’s laws against the UN agency could further limit aid

Israel also sharply cut aid to the north this month, prompting warnings from the United States that failure to promote increased humanitarian aid could lead to cuts in military aid.

Palestinians fear that Israel is carrying out a plan proposed by a group of former generals, who have proposed ordering civilians in the north to evacuate, cutting off aid and treating anyone who remains as militants.

The military has denied such a plan, while the government has not made a clear statement on the matter.

On Monday, Israel’s parliament passed two laws banning UNRWA from operating on Israeli soil and severing all ties with the agency. Israel controls access to both Gaza and the occupied West Bank, and it was unclear how the agency would continue to operate there.

Israel claims that UNRWA has been infiltrated by Hamas and that the militant group is funneling aid and using UN facilities to cover its activities. The UN agency denies the allegations.

Aid groups warn there is no immediate replacement for UNRWA, which provides education, health care and emergency aid to millions of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war surrounding Israel and their descendants. Refugee families make up the majority of Gaza’s population.

James Elder, a spokesman for the UN children’s agency known as UNICEF, said the suspension of UNRWA would “likely lead to the collapse of the humanitarian system in Gaza”. He said UNICEF “will not be able to effectively distribute life-saving supplies.”

According to him, this will hinder the supply of vaccines, winter clothes, hygiene kits, first-aid kits, water and ready-made medical food to fight malnutrition.

The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants invaded Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping about 250. About 100 hostages are still in Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.

According to local health authorities, more than 43,000 Palestinians have died in Israel’s response. About 90% of the population of 2.3 million have been evicted from their homes, often several times.

Megdi reported from Cairo and Mruu from Beirut. Associated Press writers Tia Goldenberg in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Jamie Kiten in Geneva contributed to this report.