KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip — A barrage of Israeli airstrikes leveled apartment buildings in a refugee camp near Gaza City on Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2023, with rescuers clawing through the destruction to pull men, women and children from the rubble. Israel said the strike, which targeted a senior Hamas military leader, destroyed a militant command center and an underground tunnel network.
The toll from the attack in the Jabaliya camp was not immediately known. The director of the nearby hospital where casualties were taken, Dr. Atef Al-Kahlot, said hundreds of people were wounded or killed, but he did not provide exact figures.
The Israeli military said dozens of militants were killed, including a key Hamas commander for northern Gaza. Israel aggressively defended the attack, with military spokesman Jonathan Conricus saying the targeted commander, Ibrahim Biari, had also been a key planner of the bloody Oct. 7 rampage that started the war, and that the apartment buildings collapsed only because the vast underground Hamas complex had been destroyed.
Neither side’s account could be independently confirmed.
More than 8,500 Palestinians have been killed in the war, mostly women and minors, the Gaza Health Ministry said Tuesday, without providing a breakdown between civilians and fighters. The figure is without precedent in decades of Israeli-Palestinian violence.
Over 1,400 people have died on the Israeli side, mainly civilians killed during Hamas’ initial attack, also an unprecedented figure. Palestinian militants also abducted around 240 people during their incursion and have continued firing rockets into Israel.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military confirmed Wednesday that nine more soldiers were killed in fighting in northern Gaza, bringing the total of military casualties since the start of the ground operation to 11.
Early Wednesday, the Palestinian telecoms company Paltel reported a “complete disruption” of internet and mobile phone services in Gaza, marking the second time in five days that Gaza residents were largely cut off from the world.
Communications were previously cut off late Friday until early Sunday, coinciding with the entry of large numbers of ground troops into Gaza as Israel said it was beginning a new stage in the war. Attempts to reach Gaza residents by phone were unsuccessful early Wednesday.