At least 73 dead in an Israeli bombing in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza Strip

MADRID 19 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) –

At least 73 people have been killed, most of them minors and women, in an Israeli bombardment on a residential area in the town of Beit Lahiya, in the north of the Gaza Strip, according to the Gazan authorities.

“The ‘Israeli’ occupation army has perpetrated a terrible massacre in Beit Lahiya, in the north of the Gaza Strip, which has claimed the lives of 73 martyrs and dozens of wounded and missing. The majority are children and women,” reported the Gazan Government, controlled by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).

The residential area has been completely destroyed in the bombing, carried out when civilians were there, according to the official Palestinian news agency, WAFA, which warns that there could still be many people trapped under the rubble.

The Gazan Government has once again denounced Israel’s “war of ethnic cleansing, eradication and extermination” in the Gaza Strip, which includes the “destruction of the health system of the northern governorate of the Gaza Strip”, where there are moments about 400,000 people.

Israel “has threatened hospitals and demanded that medical teams evacuate and leave them immediately.” In addition, it prevents the arrival of fuel, cuts communications and thus causes “a deep humanitarian crisis.”

In recent hours there has also been an attack by Israeli drones against the tents in which the displaced population is housed within the facilities of the Al Awda Hospital in Jabalia, also in the north of the Gaza Strip, and they have also directly attacked an ambulance, WAFA reports.

The latest official balance brings the documented deaths to 42,519 and the number of wounded to 99,637 since the beginning of the Israeli military offensive on the Gaza Strip, on October 7, 2023. This Israeli campaign is in retaliation for the attack by Gazan militiamen that day they broke into Israeli territory and killed around 1,200 people.