TRANSCRIPT
A deadly Israeli air strike on a residential block in Gaza has seen nearly 90 Palestinians killed or missing under the rubble.
Meanwhile, concerns are growing on the post-war state of Gaza as air attacks rain down on Lebanon.
The sounds of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza with children and others being treated for grievous wounds.
It comes after a devastating Israeli air strike levelled a whole residential block of the city of Beit Lahiya, with at least 87 people killed or left missing under rubble in one terrifying moment.
Another 40 are said to be wounded in the attack.
An eye witness to the deadly strike, Ahmed Al Hajeen, describes the moment.
"We were asleep, around midnight, when it suddenly felt like an earthquake hit the area. Debris was falling on us. We rushed outside after hearing the screams of women and children and found that our neighbours had been targeted by massive bombs. Tons of explosives had fallen on a residential neighbourhood full of civilians and displaced families. All those who were martyred here are children, women, and displaced people who fled from other areas due to heavy strikes, seeking shelter in what they believed to be a safer place. They fled high-risk zones, only to be struck here. More than 40 people have been martyred, and many are still trapped under the rubble. Yesterday, we managed to pull out 9 martyrs, but over 40 martyrs remain beneath the rubble, till now."
Gaza's health ministry says rescue operations were being hindered by communication problems and by the Israeli military forces in the area, which is close to the border with Israel.
The Israeli military has said it was investigating reports of Saturday's incident, which left one of the highest casualty tolls in months, but claims to have hit a Hamas target.
A displaced woman Fatima Abedrabbo says her neighbours were among the victims.
"The strike happened at midnight exactly, it hit our neighbour's house, the kids went running to help the injured, everyone was asleep. They said we couldn't find any martyrs. All of them are under the rubble and no one is visible. The next morning we woke up and they were telling everyone in houses to evacuate as they wanted to hit the houses around, we picked ourselves up and left, some walking, others running and some barefoot, this is what happened."
The UN Middle East peace envoy Tor Wennesland posted a statement on X saying that he condemns the attacks on civilians, decrying horrifying scenes after the attack.
The strike came two weeks into a major operation around the town of Jabalia, which lies just to the south of Beit Lahiya, where Israeli troops backed with tanks have been battling with remaining Hamas fighters.
This comes amid concerns the Israeli military may be preparing to seize the north of Gaza and block access from the south in order to expand its occupation of the territory after the conflict.
Palestine's United Nations envoy, Riyad Mansour, says he and other Arab ambassadors have met to discuss the danger of what he called "large-scale genocide" in the region if these reports are true and warned the U-N Secretary General.
“We assessed the situation, especially the extreme danger of large scale genocide in the northern part of Gaza, in which there are 400,000 Palestinian civilians being threatened either to be killed or to be starved to death. This is based on the leaked information in the media that there is a report by the generals in Israel who proposed this idea of sealing the northern part of the Gaza Strip, declaring it a military zone. Whoever remains there is a military target, which means that if that is to be implemented, then there is a danger of seeing larger number of extermination of Palestinians beyond and above what happened during the first year.”
Israel has denied any such plans, saying the repeated mass displacement events over the past year and now are an attempt to protect civilians and separate them from Hamas fighters.
And in Lebanon, new attacks on the capital Beirut.
These explosions were seen at Beirut's international airport today [[Mon 21 Oct]] close to the runway.
At least 12 missiles have also struck the southern suburbs of the city in Israel's escalated campaign targeting the Hezbollah militant and political infrastructure.
This comes after Israeli attacks killed at least 16 people across Lebanon on Saturday, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.
Israeli military spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, says they are now undertaking attacks on civilian areas linked to the financing of Hezbollah and have warned residents to flee immediately.
"We will attack a large number of targets in the coming hours and further targets during the night. In coming days we will also expose how Iran has financed the terror activities of Hezbollah and used civilian financial institutions, associations and NGOs as cover for their terror operations. We will attack them during the night and we will update in due course on the outcome in coming days."
