By WAFAA SHURAFA, SAMY MAGDY and BASSEM MROUE

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Two Israeli air strikes in the north of the Gaza Strip At least 88 people, including dozens of women and children, died Tuesday, health officials said, and a hospital director said life-threatening injuries were left untreated as a weekend raid by Israeli forces led to the detention of dozens of medics.

Israel has stepped up airstrikes and mounted a larger ground operation in northern Gaza in recent weeks; He said it focused on rooting out Hamas terrorists, who later regrouped. war that lasted more than a year. Intense fighting raises alarm about deteriorating humanitarian conditions for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians still in northern Gaza.

Hamas has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

Concerns that not enough aid was reaching Gaza grew louder on Monday. Israeli lawmakers pass two laws cut ties with The UN’s main food distribution agencywater and medicine and their ban from the land of Israel. Israel controls access to both Gaza and the occupied West Bank, and it is unclear how the agency known as UNRWA will continue its work in both places.

“The humanitarian operation in Gaza, if dissolved, would be one disaster in a series of disasters that need not be considered,” UNRWA spokesman John Fowler said. He said other UN agencies and international organizations distributing aid in Gaza rely on Gaza’s logistics and thousands of employees.

Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said in a statement on Tuesday. Sheikh Naim Kassem succeed Longtime leader Hassan NasrallahHe was killed in an Israeli airstrike last month. Hezbollah, which has been firing rockets at Israel since the beginning of the war in Gaza, vowed to continue Nasrallah’s policies “until victory is achieved.”

Shortly afterwards, it was reported that eight Austrian soldiers serving with the UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon were slightly injured in a midday missile attack.

The peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL said the rocket that hit its headquarters in Lebanon was “probably” fired by Hezbollah and hit a vehicle workshop.

People react where one person died after a projectile launched from Lebanon hit Maalot-Tarshiha in northern Israel on Tuesday, October 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Palestinians mourn their relatives killed in Israeli shelling in the Gaza Strip at a hospital morgue in Deir al-Balah, Tuesday, October 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

An ultra-Orthodox Jew walks past the east Jerusalem compound of UNRWA, the UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees, Tuesday, October 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

This is a location map of Israel and the Palestinian Territories. (AP Photo)

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People react where one person died after a projectile launched from Lebanon hit Maalot-Tarshiha in northern Israel on Tuesday, October 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

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The strike in northern Gaza came as Israel launched a major operation there

At least 70 people were killed and 23 were missing in the first attack on the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya on Tuesday, the emergency service of the Gaza Ministry of Health said. More than half of the victims were women and children, the ministry said. According to emergency services, those killed in the attack on a five-storey building included a mother and her five children, some of whom were adults, and a second mother with six children.

At least 18 people were killed in the second attack on Beit Lahiya on Tuesday evening, according to the Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in the count.

Director Dr. According to Hossam Abu Safiya, the nearby Kamal Adwan Hospital was overwhelmed with a group of injured women and children, including some who needed emergency surgery. The Israeli army raided the hospital over the weekend and detained dozens of medics it said were Hamas fighters.

“The situation is literally catastrophic,” Safiya said, adding that the only doctor remaining in the hospital was the pediatrician. “The health system has collapsed and urgent international intervention is needed.”

The Israeli military said it was investigating the first Beit Lahiya attack; He did not immediately comment on the latter.

Recent Israeli operations in northern Gaza, focusing on the Jabaliya refugee camp and its surroundings, have killed hundreds of people and drove tens of thousands of people from their homes.

The Israeli army has repeatedly attacked shelters for displaced people in recent months. It says it carried out precision strikes targeting Palestinian fighters and tried to avoid harming civilians, but that mostly women and children were killed in the attacks.

On Tuesday, Israel said four more of its soldiers were killed in clashes in northern Gaza, bringing the death toll since the start of the operation to 16, including a colonel.

As the fighting intensified, Hamas signaled its readiness to restart ceasefire negotiations; but their core demands – a permanent ceasefire and a complete withdrawal of the Israeli army – appear to have remained unchanged and have been rejected by Israel in the past. Israel. Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said Tuesday that the group had accepted mediators’ request to discuss “new proposals.”

Hezbollah’s new leader vows to continue fighting Israel

Hezbollah said in a statement that its decision-making body, the Shura Council, selected Qassem, Nasrallah’s deputy leader for more than three decades, as the new secretary-general.

Kassem, 71, a founding member of the militant group established after Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, was serving as acting leader. He made several televised speeches vowing that Hezbollah would continue fighting despite a series of setbacks.

After Hamas’ surprise attack from Gaza on October 7, 2023 triggered the war there, Hezbollah began firing rockets at Israel and retaliated. Iran also supports both groups. Direct fire was opened with IsraelIn April and then again this month.

Tensions with Hezbollah escalated further in September when Israel launched heavy airstrikes, killing Nasrallah and many of his top commanders. Israel launched a ground operation against Lebanon at the beginning of October.

Hezbollah fired dozens of rockets into northern Israel on Tuesday, killing one person in the northern city of Maalot-Tarchiha, officials said. The Lebanese Ministry of Health said that at least five people died in Israel’s attack on the coastal city of Sidon.

Israeli laws targeting UN agencies could further restrict aid

UNRWA and other international groups continued to express outrage Tuesday over the Israeli parliament’s decision to cut ties with the agency.

Israel says UNRWA has been infiltrated by Hamas and that the group has withdrawn aid and used UN facilities to protect its activities; The UN agency denies these allegations.

Israeli government spokesman David Mencer promised that aid would continue to arrive in Gaza as Israel plans to coordinate with aid agencies or other bodies within the UN: “Ultimately, we will ensure that UNRWA takes on the role of a more effective replacement, not an infiltrated one.” “By the terrorist organization,” he said.

Multiple UN agencies rallied around UNRWA on Tuesday, describing it as the “backbone” of the world organization’s aid activities in Gaza and other Palestinian areas. UNRWA provides education, healthcare and emergency aid to millions of Palestinian refugees 1948 war surrounding Israel’s founding and their grandchildren. Refugee families make up the majority of Gaza’s population.

Almost a quarter of UNRWA’s nearly 13,000 staff are health workers who provide services such as vaccinations, disease surveillance and malnutrition screening, according to World Health Organization spokesman Tarik Jasarevic. He said UNRWA’s work “cannot be compared to any other institution, including the WHO.”

Israel sharply restricted aid to northern Gaza this month. A warning from the USA Failure to provide more humanitarian aid could lead to a reduction in military aid.

Hamas killed approximately 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took nearly 250 people hostage in its attack on Israel last year. About 100 hostages remain in Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.

More than 43,000 Palestinians were killed in Israel’s retaliatory attack, according to local health authorities. Approximately 90% of the population of 2.3 million have been displaced from their homes, often multiple times.

Magdy reported from Cairo and Mroue from Beirut. Associated Press writers Tia Goldenberg in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.

First Publication Date: October 29, 2024 10:13 CDT