Gaza Strip: Israeli claims two Hamas leaders killed as air strikes kill at least 38

Israeli air attacks across the Gaza Strip have killed at least 38 Palestinians, most of them in a strike on a house in Beit Lahiya on the northern edge of the enclave, medics say.

The Beit Lahiya strike killed at least 22 people, including women and children, health officials said.

Relatives listed the names of the dead on social media.

More than 30 people were living in the multi-storey building before it was struck, and several family members remained missing as rescue operations continued through the morning, the Palestinian WAFA news agency said.

The Israeli military told Reuters it had carried out a strike targeting Hamas militants near the Kamal Adwan Hospital, which is located between Beit Lahiya and Jabalia, towns on the northern fringe of Gaza under Israeli siege for two months.

It said it was continuing to examine the incident but described the number of fatalities reported by Palestinian medics and media as “inaccurate” and at odds with the army’s information.

In nearby Beit Hanoun, also part of the area under siege, medics said an Israeli air strike killed and wounded several people, without giving an exact toll.

Rescue workers said several people were trapped under rubble.

Earlier on Wednesday, at least seven Palestinians were killed and several others wounded in an Israeli air strike on a house in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, medics told Reuters.

The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service and medics said nine other people were killed in three separate Israeli air strikes on two houses and a crowd in Gaza City, including journalist Eman al-Shanti, her husband and three of their children.

Al-Shanti was the 193rd journalist killed by Israel since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, the Palestinian Union of Journalists said.

In a statement, the Israeli military said it killed in separate air strikes two senior armed Hamas commanders who had taken a leading role in the October 7, 2023 cross-border attack on Israel that triggered the war.

It said one of the two, Fahmi Selmi, was a senior elite unit commander in Hamas whom it said had operated from inside a former school in Gaza City’s Zeitoun suburb at the time of the air strike, whose timing it did not disclose.

The military said the second man, Salah Dahman, had served as the head of Hamas’ paragliding unit in the Jabalia area, had been killed in an air strike last week.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Israeli military said two rockets had been fired from the central Gaza Strip into Israel but fell in open areas and caused no injuries.

The rocket salvo demonstrated the ability of Gaza militants to continue to stage rocket attacks despite 14 months of devastating Israeli aerial and ground offensives.

Citing rocket launches from the area, the Israeli military ordered residents in the al-Maghazi camp in central Gaza to leave the area.

It urged them to head towards a humanitarian-designated zone near the Mediterranean coast.

Palestinian and United Nations officials say there are no safe areas in the widely devastated territory.

Israel says harm to civilians is a consequence of Palestinian militants hiding among them, an accusation Hamas denies.

Fighting has focused on the densely urbanised north, where Israeli armoured forces have been operating in Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya and Jabalia since October 5.

Israel says it is fighting to prevent Hamas militants regrouping and resuming attacks from those areas.

Palestinian officials and residents accuse Israel of seeking to depopulate the area to create a buffer zone along the northern end of the coastal territory, which Israel denies.

Israel and Hamas have been waging war since Hamas-led militants carried out a lightning cross-border incursion into southwestern Israel on October 7, 2023 killing 1200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

The attack triggered Israel’s military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, which has killed more than 44,800 Palestinians and displaced most of the 2.3 million population, Gaza health authorities say.