UN Condemns Israeli Airstrikes in Gaza's Beit Lahiya

 Palestinians gather at the site of Israeli strikes on houses and residential buildings, amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, in Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip October 20, 2024. REUTERS/Abdul Karim Farid
Palestinians gather at the site of Israeli strikes on houses and residential buildings, amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, in Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip October 20, 2024. REUTERS/Abdul Karim Farid
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UN Condemns Israeli Airstrikes in Gaza's Beit Lahiya

 Palestinians gather at the site of Israeli strikes on houses and residential buildings, amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, in Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip October 20, 2024. REUTERS/Abdul Karim Farid
Palestinians gather at the site of Israeli strikes on houses and residential buildings, amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, in Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip October 20, 2024. REUTERS/Abdul Karim Farid

The UN peace envoy for the Middle East on Sunday condemned the continued attacks on civilians after Israeli airstrikes in Gaza's Beit Lahiya killed dozens late on Saturday.

"This follows weeks of intensified operations resulting in scores of civilian fatalities and near total lack of humanitarian aid reaching populations in the north," said Tor Wennesland, the UN Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process.

For his part, civil defense agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said: "Our civil defense crews recovered 73 martyrs and a large number of wounded as a result of the Israeli air force targeting a residential area... in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza."

Bassal also said that more than 400 martyrs from the various targeted areas in the northern Gaza Strip were recovered, including Jabalia and its refugee camp, since Israel's operation began.

"More than a year has passed, and every day our blood is shed," displaced Gazan Nasser Shaqura said outside a hospital in Deir el-Balah, where victims of an Israeli air strike were taken.

"Every day, every hour, there is a massacre," he said.

"This is what our lives have become."



Israeli Colonel Killed in Combat in Northern Gaza

An Israeli army tank maneuvers near the Israel-Gaza border in southern Israel, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)
An Israeli army tank maneuvers near the Israel-Gaza border in southern Israel, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)
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Israeli Colonel Killed in Combat in Northern Gaza

An Israeli army tank maneuvers near the Israel-Gaza border in southern Israel, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)
An Israeli army tank maneuvers near the Israel-Gaza border in southern Israel, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)

A 41-year-old Israeli colonel was killed, and another officer was wounded in combat in northern Gaza on Sunday, the Israeli military said.

Israel's Channel 12 and public broadcaster Kan reported an explosive device had gone off under a tank.

Meanwhile, officials in Gaza said rescuers were still recovering people from the rubble after an Israeli attack that killed dozens.

At least 87 people were dead or missing following the air strike on Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza late on Saturday, the health ministry in the Palestinian territory said, one of the highest death tolls for months from a single attack. Israel said it was investigating reports of the incident.

It marked an intensification of Israel's offensives against Hamas in Gaza.