Gaza under fire Scores killed in Israeli airstrikes

At least 87 people had been killed or were missing and 40 injured after intense Israeli airstrikes overnight in the north of the Gaza Strip, part of the country's ferocious renewed assault on the area, medics in the besieged Palestinian territory said yesterday.

- Bethan McKernan

In the past 24 hours 108 people had been killed in bombings across the territory, according to local health officials yesterday. "The nightmare in Gaza is intensifying," said Tor Wennesland, the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process.

"Horrifying scenes are unfolding in the northern strip amidst relentless Israeli strikes and an ever-worsening humanitarian crisis." "Nowhere is safe in Gaza... We owe it to the families suffering in Gaza and Israel. The war must stop now." Bombings on Saturday in Beit Lahiya flattened houses and an apartment block, killing people from several families, according to Raheem Kheder, a medic. Among the dead were two parents and their four children, and a woman, her son and daughter-in-law and their four children, he said.

Internet and phone services have been down in parts of Gaza since Saturday, complicating the rescue operation.

In a post on X, Mounir al-Bursh, the director general of the health ministry, said the flood of injured people from the strikes compounded "an already catastrophic situation for the healthcare system" in northern Gaza.

There was no immediate comment on the strikes in Beit Lahiya from the Israeli military, which said it was "continuing to operate across Gaza in both aerial strikes and ground operations".