Deadly Israeli airstrikes were also reported elsewhere in the Gaza Strip on Thursday.
Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis said it had received the bodies of 24 people killed in Israeli military operations there and in nearby Rafah.
The Israeli military has recently strengthened its ground attacks in the northern Gaza Strip, saying it is preventing Hamas from regrouping in the Gaza Strip.
The United Nations said Beit Lahia and the nearby villages of Beit Hanoun and Jabalia were under siege and virtually no humanitarian aid had arrived since early October.
Photos from the site of the Beit Lahia airstrike on Thursday morning showed piles of rubble and twisted metal about 55 meters (185 feet) from Kamal Adwan Hospital.
“Dozens of people are dead or missing,” said Major General Hussam Abu Safiya.
“Bodies arrived at the hospital in pieces,” he told AFP. “But there are no ambulances, and the health system in northern Gaza is broken.”
Dr. Abu Safiya said the hospital was only able to provide first aid to most casualties because the Israeli military did not allow sufficient medical supplies.
The Israeli military said in a statement that overnight it had “attacked Hamas terrorist infrastructure in the Beit Lahia area” and that Hamas fighters, including those involved in the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, were operating there. Gaza war.
“Ahead of the strike, a variety of measures were taken to mitigate the risk to civilians, including aerial surveillance, warning residents in the area to evacuate the combat zone, and additional intelligence information,” he added. “The incident is under review.”
Israel’s ground offensive in northern Gaza has left up to 130,000 people homeless over the past five weeks.
The United Nations said 75,000 people remained under siege in Beit Lahia, Jabalia and Beit Hanoun, with water and food supplies dwindling.
A Human Rights Watch report last week said Israel committed war crimes and crimes against humanity by deliberately displacing Palestinians in large numbers from the Gaza Strip. Israel said the report was “completely false and divorced from reality.”
According to the United Nations, approximately 1.9 million people, or 90% of the Gaza Strip’s population, have fled their homes in the past year, and 79% of Gaza is under evacuation orders issued by Israel.
Israel launched a campaign to destroy Hamas on October 7, 2023, in response to its unprecedented attacks on southern Israel. The attack left approximately 1,200 people dead and 251 taken hostage.
Since then, nearly 44,000 people have died and more than 104,000 have been injured in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
On Wednesday, the United States blocked a draft resolution for a ceasefire in Gaza at the United Nations Security Council. This is the fourth time the United States has used its veto during a conflict to protect its ally Israel.
Fourteen of the 15 members of parliament voted in favor of the draft bill, which calls for the war in Gaza to “end immediately, unconditionally and permanently, and for the immediate and unconditional release of all remaining hostages.”
Robert Wood, the U.S. deputy ambassador to the United Nations, said the document “abandoned” the need for “a link between a ceasefire and the release of hostages.”
Wood said the proposed resolution would have sent a “dangerous message” to Hamas that “there is no need to come back to the negotiating table.”
Separately, American mediator Amos Hochstein arrived in Israel from Lebanon.
He said he sees a “real opportunity” to end the conflict in Lebanon after the Lebanese government and Hezbollah largely agreed to a U.S. ceasefire proposal.
