DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The Gaza Strip Ministry of Health said the death toll in an Israeli attack on a building housing displaced persons has risen to 60.

Director of the ministry’s field hospitals department, Dr. Marwan al-Hams announced the losses from Tuesday’s strike at a press conference. He says 17 more people are missing.

The attack occurred in the northern town of Beit Lahiya, near the Israeli border, where Israel has been conducting a major operation for more than three weeks.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Below is AP’s earlier story.

Israel’s attack on the five-storey building housing displaced Palestinians in the north of the Gaza Strip Gaza’s Health Ministry said early Tuesday it had killed at least 34 people, more than half of whom were women and children.

Separately, Lebanon’s militant group Hezbollah said it had chosen Sheikh Naim Kassem as its new top leader after Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike last month.

In its statement, the group said that Hezbollah’s decision-making Shura Council elected Kassem, Nasrallah’s deputy leader for more than thirty years, as the new secretary general. Hezbollah vowed to continue Nasrallah’s policies “until victory is achieved.”

Gaza Health Ministry emergency service said 20 more people were injured in the attack in the northern town of Beit Lahiya, close to the Israeli border.

There has been no immediate comment from the Israeli army, which has been carrying out a large-scale operation in northern Gaza for more than three weeks, targeting some of the Hamas militants who have regrouped there.

According to the initial casualty list provided by the emergency services, the dead included a mother and her five children, some of whom were adults, and a second mother and her six children.

Director of nearby Kamal Adwan Hospital, Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya said that the number of people injured in the attack was very high. Israeli forces raided the medical facility over the weekend and detained dozens of medics.

The Israeli military has repeatedly attacked shelters for displaced people in recent months, saying it was carrying out precision strikes targeting Palestinian militants and trying to avoid harming civilians. Women and children were often killed during strikes.

The army said several Hamas militants were detained in the raid on Kamal Advan, the latest in a series of raids on hospitals since the beginning of the war.

Israel’s last major operation, focusing on the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, killed hundreds of people and displaced tens of thousands from their homes. another wave of mass displacement More than a year has passed since the war in the tiny coastal region.

Israel also sharply restricted aid to the north this month. A warning from the USA Failure to facilitate further relief efforts could lead to reduced military aid.

Palestinians fear Israel enacting laws a plan proposed by a group of former generalsThe person who suggested that the civilian population in the north should be ordered to be evacuated, aid supplies should be cut off, and everyone remaining there should be considered militants.

While the military denied that such a plan was carried out, the government did not publicly say whether it carried out all or part of it.

On Monday, the Israeli parliament passed two laws that could block the UN establishment for Palestinian refugees: Gaza’s largest aid provider – From operating in Palestinian territory. This was the culmination of a long-running campaign against UNRWA, which Israel claimed was infiltrated by Hamas, allegations denied by the organisation.

The war began when Hamas-led militants raided Israel on October 7, 2023, killing approximately 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping around 250. About 100 hostages are still in Gaza, and a third of them 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.

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Magdy reported from Cairo and Mroue from Beirut.

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