UPDATES DEATH TOLL, ADDS DETAILS, REVISES HEADLINE, LEDE, EDITS THROUGH
By Anadolu staff
ANKARA (AA) – At least 72 Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahia on Sunday, according to local authorities.
Gaza’s government media office said Israeli warplanes targeted several residential buildings and homes in the town in the morning.
"The occupation army was aware that dozens of displaced civilians were inside these buildings, and that the majority of them were children and women who had been displaced from their neighborhoods,” it added in a statement.
A medical source earlier told Anadolu that Israeli fighter jets hit a five-story building in the Beit Lahia Project area on Sunday, killing about 50 people and leaving several others trapped under the rubble.
Witnesses said that over 70 displaced civilians had sheltered inside the targeted building.
An Israeli strike targeted another house in the area, killing 15 people and injuring several others, another medical source said.
Two more Palestinians were killed when Israeli warplanes struck another residence in Beit Lahia, the source added.
Since Oct. 5, Israel has launched a large-scale ground operation in northern Gaza to allegedly prevent Palestinian resistance group Hamas from regrouping. Palestinians, however, accuse Israel of seeking to occupy the area and forcibly displace its residents.
Since then, no humanitarian aid, including food, medicine, and fuel, was allowed into the area, leaving most of the population there on the verge of imminent famine.
More than 2,000 people have since been killed, according to Palestinian health authorities.
The onslaught was the latest episode in a brutal Israeli war on the Gaza Strip since October last year, despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire.
Nearly 43,800 people have since been killed in Gaza, mostly women and children, and over 103,600 others injured, according to Palestinian health authorities.
Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its deadly war on Gaza.
* Writing by Ikram Kouachi