DEIR AL-BALAH: Gaza's civil defence agency said Tuesday that an overnight Israeli air strike killed atleast 100 people in a residential building in the northern district of Beit Lahia.
Israel's key ally and backer the United States called the strike -- which killed a large number of children -- "horrifying".
"This was a horrifying incident with a horrifying result," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.
Palestinian rescuers and desperate family members gathered around the demolished five-storey block in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza.
A charred body with long hair hung from an upper-storey window and bodies in blankets were lined up in the street as stunned relatives sought to identify loved ones.
"The number of martyrs in the massacre of the Abu Nasr family home in Beit Lahia has risen to 93 martyrs, and about 40 are still missing under the rubble," agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP earlier.
"The explosion happened at night and I first thought it was shelling, but when I went out after sunrise I saw people pulling bodies, limbs and the wounded from under the rubble," said Rabie al-Shandagly, 30, who had taken refuge in a nearby school in Beit Lahia.
"Most of the victims are women and children, and people are trying to save the injured, but there are no hospitals or proper medical care," he told AFP.
On Tuesday, Palestinians searched through the rubble of the building and removed the dead, while others mourned over the bodies of relatives.
The ministry's emergency service said another 20 people were wounded in the strike in the northern town of Beit Lahiya, near the Israeli border.
The bodies of 15 people killed in the strike were brought to Kamal Adwan Hospital, its director Hussam Abu Safia told AFP.
"We are still receiving a number of martyrs and wounded," Safia said, adding that the hospital was struggling to treat patients due to a lack of staff and medicines.
"There is nothing left in the Kamal Adwan Hospital except first aid materials after the army arrested our medical team and workers when they invaded the hospital during the military operation in Jabalia," Safia said.
Hussam Abu Safia's eight year old son was killed by the Israeli army on October 18, as he refused to leave the hospital during the raid.
The army stormed the hospital and detained hundreds of Palestinians including health care workers, patients and others who had sought shelter in the facility.
The Israeli military has repeatedly struck shelters for displaced people in recent months, claiming it were precise strikes targeting Palestinian militants.
Israel's latest major operation in northern Gaza, focused on the Jabaliya refugee camp, has killed hundreds of people and driven tens of thousands from their homes in another wave of mass displacement with many international organisations and countries terming it as an "ethnic cleansing."
More than 770 people have been killed by Israel in northern Gaza in just 19 days, according to Palestinian officials.
Jabaliya is an urban refugee camp in northern Gaza that dates back to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians famously known as 'Nakba', surrounding Israel's creation in 1948.
Israel has also sharply restricted aid to the north this month, prompting a warning from its greatest ally, the United States who has warned that failure to facilitate greater aid efforts could lead to a reduction in military aid.
Israel is reportedly enacting a plan proposed by a group of former generals, who suggested the civilian population of the north should be ordered to evacuate, aid supplies should be cut off, and anyone remaining there should be considered a militant and "killed" or starved to death.
The military has denied it is carrying out such a plan, while the government has not said clearly whether it is carrying out all or part of it.
The strike on residential buildings in Beit Lahia came hours after Israeli lawmakers passed two laws banning the main U.N. agency providing aid to people in Gaza by barring it from operating on Israeli soil, severing ties with it and labeling it a "terror organization."
It was the culmination of a long-running campaign against UNRWA, which provides education, health care and other basic services to millions of Palestinian refugees across the region, including in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Israel has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians since the beginning of its recent war on Gaza, officials in Gaza reported Monday. This includes at least 17,000 children and more than 11,400 woman. Israel has also killed more than 174 journalists and over 1000 healthcare workers in Gaza.
(With inputs from Online Desk)
