Dozens of people have been killed in an Israeli air raid on the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, according to a medical official and Palestinian authorities in the besieged territory.
“More than 50 people have been killed,” Dr Atef al-Kahlout, director of the Indonesian Hospital, told Al Jazeera. He said the hospital was not yet able to provide the total number of casualties as it was still counting the victims.
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The health ministry in Gaza said more than 50 people were killed and scores of others wounded in the Israeli bombardment.
“More than 50 martyrs and around 150 wounded and dozens under the rubble, in a heinous Israeli massacre that targeted a large area of homes in Jabalia camp in the northern [Gaza] Strip,” a health ministry statement said.
There was no immediate comment from Israel.Play Video
Video Duration 00 minutes 23 seconds00:23Dozens killed in major Israeli attack in Gaza refugee camp
The strike comes as Israel continues to pummel the Gaza Strip with constant airstrikes, which Palestinian authorities say have killed 8,525 people, including more than 3,500 children, since fighting began on October 7 following a deadly assault by Hamas on southern Israel that Israeli authorities say killed more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians.
Israel has also put Gaza under a total siege, cutting off access to water, electricity, food, and fuel for the strip’s more than 2.3 million residents. United Nations officials have said that more than half of Gaza’s population has been displaced by the fighting.
Anxieties among Palestinians are also high as Israel steps up ground operations inside Gaza over the last four days, with tanks and infantry probing the areas around Gaza City in the northern section of the strip.
In footage of the aftermath of the strike on Jabalia, residents can be seen standing around large craters in the earth and piles of rubble.Play Video
Video Duration 08 minutes 50 seconds08:50Jabalia refugee camp ‘completely destroyed’: Gaza’s interior ministry
“I went and saw the destruction… homes buried under the rubble and body parts and martyrs and wounded in huge numbers,” 41-year-old Jabalia resident Ragheb Aqal told the news outlet AFP.