The Municipality of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza has declared the town a “disaster” area amid weeks of relentless Israeli bombardment and military siege.
A senior UNRWA official has described scenes in northern Gaza as “catastrophic”.
Israeli forces on Tuesday killed more than 110 Palestinians in Beit Lahiya in an attack that the United States called “horrifying”.
Israel continues its deadly strikes on southern Lebanon, with women and children among 15 people killed in the latest attacks in Sarafand and Haret Saida near Sidon city.
Israeli media have reported that at least 33 Israeli soldiers have been killed in fighting in southern Lebanon since the start of the month.
More than 150 people are reported to have been killed in Israel’s latest attacks in northern Gaza and Lebanon.
At least 93 Palestinians were killed when an Israeli attack flattened a five-storey residential building housing displaced people in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahiya on Tuesday, the head of Gaza’s Government Media Office said.
Overnight, at least 60 people were killed in eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.
Israel carried out the attacks as the humanitarian situation in both Gaza and Lebanon deteriorates.
Conditions in northern Gaza, which has been under an Israeli siege since early October, are particularly harsh.
Despite the high death toll and worsening plight of those still living in northern Gaza, ceasefire talks that have resumed in Qatar are not expected to achieve a breakthrough while Israel has moved to halt the operations of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which is the main lifeline for most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people.
Dr Hussam Abu Safia, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, the main medical facility in northern Gaza, said more than 150 dead and wounded had arrived after the attack. However, he warned that many of those injured may die because of a lack of resources.
Israeli forces detained dozens of medical staff at the hospital last week, leaving only three doctors.
The United States has asked Israel to explain the “horrifying” strike, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said.
Miller said it was a “horrifying incident with a horrifying result.”
Washington contacted Israeli officials and “made clear we want to know exactly what happened, how you could have a result that produces, according to reports, dozens of children dead, and we don’t yet know the answer to that question,” Miller said.
Source: Al Jazeera and other media outlets
