As Israel hammers north Gaza, Palestinians dig for the dead in multi-storey ruins

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By Nidal al-Mughrabi

CAIRO (Reuters) -After another of Israel’s relentless airstrikes in its north Gaza offensive, Palestinians rushed to a bombed-out four-storey house of neighbours on Tuesday and plucked body parts off its walls and floors in a desperate search for any survivors.

The missile strike left a house of horror, with at least 93 dead or missing among mainly members of the extended Abu Naser family, the owners, as well as displaced men, women and children crammed into every available space, Gaza’s health ministry said.

With most of the world focused on Israel’s military campaign in Lebanon against Iran-backed Hezbollah, Israel has for more than three weeks been heavily bombarding north Gaza in its year-old war against Hamas after its militants regrouped there. 

Civilians paid the bloodiest price once again.

At the Abu Naser house, neighbours scrabbled through mounds of concrete wreckage, wrapped whatever remains they could find in blankets and lowered them by rope from a balcony to be laid on the blood-splattered ground, next to intact bodies of others.

People dragged aside chunks of dusty masonry and twisted wire, revealing the limbs of victims trapped underneath, many of them lifeless as they were eased out. The Gaza health ministry said at least 20 of those killed were children.

“There are tens of martyrs (dead) – tens of displaced people were living in this house. The house was bombed without prior warning,” Ismail Ouaida, a witness who was helping to recover bodies, said in a video shared on social media.

“As you can see, martyrs are here and there, with body parts hanging from the walls.” 

The health ministry said earlier that at least 60 people were confirmed dead and dozens wounded in the strike in Beit Lahiya, a town widely devastated by Israeli airstrikes and shelling. There was no immediate Israeli military comment.

Israel has accused Hamas of concealing armed militants among civilians in residential and public buildings including schools and hospitals, which it denies. Hamas and Palestinian civilians accuse Israel of indiscriminate bombing, a charge it rejects.

The U.N. Human Rights Office said it was “appalled” by one of the deadliest single attacks in nearly three months, calling for a prompt, transparent investigation into the circumstances.

TRAUMATISED

Jabalia, the largest of the Gaza Strip’s eight historic refugee camps, and the nearby towns of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun have been traumatised by a new Israeli air and ground assault Palestinian medics say has killed around 900 people.

The Israeli military has said the operations aim to prevent a revival of Hamas in the area and that hundreds of militants have been killed and their combat infrastructure dismantled.

Local residents rejected Israel’s rationale.

“They are after children, and women, there is no fighting here, it is only Israeli hell bombs dropped on our heads from the sky,” said Adel, 60, a Beit Lahiya resident.

“People who are bombed die before medical teams arrive, and those who make it to hospitals die too because there is no medication,” he told Reuters, refusing to give a full name.

The death toll from Israel’s air and ground offensive in Gaza triggered by a lightning cross-border Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023 has exceeded 43,000, the Gaza health ministry said.

Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people in their rampage into southwestern Israeli communities and took over 250 hostages in what was the deadliest day in Israel’s 76-year history. Israel has vowed no end to the war until it wipes out Hamas as a military force and governing entity in Gaza.

“North Gaza is a place of hell – a big operation of killing, destruction, rubble, makeshift graveyards and famine,” Adnan Abu Hasna, Gaza media spokesperson for the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA told Reuters in Cairo.

Israel’s decision on Monday to ban UNRWA, citing the role of some local staff in the Oct. 7 attack, has raised fears among Israel’s Western allies that this will worsen the already dire humanitarian situation in Gaza.

The U.N. World Food Programme called on Tuesday for immediate action to avert famine in the Gaza Strip, warning that the humanitarian crisis there could soon worsen amid what it said were severe restrictions on aid flows.

Israel’s main ally the United States told it on Oct. 13 that it must take steps within 30 days to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza or face potential curbs on U.S. military aid.

“Israel’s words must be matched by action on the ground. Right now, that is not happening. This must change – immediately,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday.

In other airstrikes on Tuesday, at least five Palestinians were killed in a crowded market in Gaza City, also in the enclave’s north, and two died in a tent camp in al-Mawasi in the south, Palestinian media and medics said.

(Additional reporting by Yazan Kalach Kalach in Cairo, Emma Farge in Geneva and Michelle Nichols at the United Nations; editing by Michael Georgy and Mark Heinrich)