Israeli Airstrike in Gaza City Leaves Many Dead, Health Officials There Say

An Israeli airstrike on a Gaza City neighborhood killed 23 people on Wednesday, including eight children, and left more than 70 wounded, Gaza’s Civil Defense service said. About 20 people remained missing, but rescuers had little equipment to pull them from the rubble, the group said.

The Israeli military said it had been targeting a Hamas operative who it said was responsible for planning attacks. It did not name the operative or give further details. Civil Defense’s death toll, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, could not be independently verified. Gaza’s Health Ministry had not yet released a death toll.

A Civil Defense spokesman, Mahmoud Basal, said the strike had destroyed eight homes in Shajaiye, an already hard-hit area.

Video footage published by Reuters showed rescuers trying to free dust-caked people from the wreckage with little but shovels, tools and their bare hands. They strained to push a collapsed ceiling off a man who was trapped flat underneath.

Two men picked their way through the moonscape that had been the street, lifting a small body in a colorful blanket. A donkey cart pulled another blanket-wrapped body away.

Hazem Rajab, 49, was sitting on his living room couch when he heard a sudden explosion and the ceiling caved in, he said in a phone interview.

Rescuers arrived about 15 minutes later, he said. Mr. Rajab said he was protected by a concrete pillar that had fallen over him and two of his children. But his 12-year-old son, Yusuf, was killed.

It had been only about three months since Mr. Rajab’s wife, another son and three of their daughters were killed in “the greatest loss of our lives,” Mr. Rajab said.

Additional airstrikes hit elsewhere in the neighborhood on Wednesday, Mr. Basal said, but rescuers had not yet been able to respond to those strikes.

Israel has faced international condemnation for airstrikes that have killed tens of thousands of people in Gaza. The Israeli military says Hamas operatives embed among civilians. On Wednesday, it said that it had taken “numerous steps” to reduce harm to civilians before striking, using aerial surveillance, “other intelligence” and precise weaponry.

A New York Times investigation has found that the Israeli military has loosened its rules on how many civilians it can endanger with each airstrike, and international law experts note that Israel has an obligation to protect civilians.

Dozens of wounded survivors on Wednesday were sent to Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, where Khamis Elessi, a volunteer doctor, said bloodied children were crowded into the emergency room.

“It makes you want to cry,” Mr. Elessi, 56, said in a phone interview. “When I see these kids, I imagine what if they were mine. I don’t care if two parties are fighting each other, but the kids have nothing to do with it.”

Many in the emergency room were being treated on the floor because the hospital had no free beds, he said. Gaza’s health care system is struggling to cope with casualties, particularly after Israel blocked all humanitarian aid from entering Gaza on March 2, including medical supplies and fuel.

The sounds of crying and screaming filled the hospital’s morgue, where the dead were laid out. One man screamed as he gripped his son’s body. His relatives had to pull him away.

Gaza health officials say that more than 50,000 people have been killed since Israel began striking Gaza in October 2023 in response to the Hamas-led attack on Israel that killed more than 1,200 people.

The Israeli military said on Friday that its forces had begun operating in Shajaiye to expand what the military has characterized as a buffer zone next to Israel’s border with Gaza.

The military had ordered people to leave parts of northern Gaza late last week as it stepped up its ground campaign, though Mr. Basal said the Israeli military had not included the street that was hit in the evacuation zone.

Photographs and videos verified by The New York Times show that buildings leveled in the Israeli strike are just outside the evacuation zone, within the area that Israeli forces called for civilians to head to. Israel has said that it will target Hamas wherever it believes the armed group to be.

Many in evacuation zone complied with the order, though some chose to stay, saying that they could not face more upheaval after enduring displacement after displacement earlier in the war. Israel is holding an increasing amount of territory, leaving Gazans even fewer places to go.

Alaa al-Sosi, 42, said she and her children would have to return to Shajaiye after fleeing the area on Wednesday. “We have no other place to stay,” she said.

During the first 15 months of war, the fighting between the Israeli military and Hamas reduced much of Shajaiye to a wasteland. A shaky cease-fire paused the fighting and allowed more humanitarian help to enter Gaza from January to March, but Israel renewed airstrikes after the two sides failed to reach an agreement to extend the truce.

Adam Rasgon, Abu Bakr Bashir, Rawan Sheikh Ahmad and Aric Toler contributed reporting.