Israeli strikes on northern Gaza have killed at least 22 people, mostly women and children, Palestinian officials said Sunday, as Israel’s offensive in the hard-hit and isolated area entered a third week and the U.N. secretary-general called the plight of Palestinians there “unbearable.” Israel said it targeted militants.
In a separate development, a truck rammed into a bus stop near Tel Aviv, killing one person and wounding more than 30. Israeli police said the attacker was an Arab citizen of Israel. The ramming occurred outside a military base and near the headquarters of Israel’s Mossad spy agency.
Iran’s supreme leader, meanwhile, said Israeli strikes on the country on Saturday in response to Iran’s ballistic missile attack earlier this month “should not be exaggerated nor downplayed,” while stopping short of calling for retaliation. It was Israel’s first open attack on its archenemy.
That exchange of fire has raised fears of an all-out regional war pitting Israel and the United States against Iran and its militant proxies, which include Hamas and the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon, where Israel launched a ground invasion earlier this month after nearly a year of lower-level conflict.
Two Israeli strikes killed eight people in Sidon city in southern Lebanon, with 25 wounded, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. One strike hit a residential building, according to footage taken by an Associated Press reporter.
The Israeli military said four soldiers, including a military rabbi, were killed in fighting in southern Lebanon, without providing details. It said five other personnel were severely wounded. An explosive drone and a projectile fired from Lebanon wounded five people in Israel, authorities said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in his first public comments on the strikes, said that “we severely harmed Iran’s defense capabilities and its ability to produce missiles that are aimed toward us.”
Satellite images showed damage to two secretive Iranian military bases, one linked to work on nuclear weapons that Western intelligence agencies and nuclear inspectors say was discontinued in 2003, and another linked to Iran’s ballistic missile program. Iran on Sunday said a civilian had been killed, with no details. It earlier said four people with the military air defense were killed.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s 85-year-old supreme leader, said that “it is up to the authorities to determine how to convey the power and will of the Iranian people to the Israeli regime and to take actions that serve the interests of this nation and country.” Khamenei would make any final decision on how Iran responds.
Later Sunday, protesters disrupted a speech by Netanyahu at a nationally broadcast ceremony for the victims of Hamas’ attack on southern Israel last year that sparked the war in Gaza. People shouted “Shame on you” and forced Netanyahu to stop his speech. Many Israelis blame Netanyahu for the failures that led to the’ attack and hold him responsible for not yet bringing home remaining hostages.
An Israeli official said Mossad chief David Barnea is traveling to Qatar for cease-fire and hostage release talks. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose details.
In Ramat Hasharon, northeast of Tel Aviv, the truck slammed into a bus as Israelis were returning to work after a weeklong holiday, leaving some people stuck under vehicles.
Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said six of the wounded were in serious condition. The Ichilov Medical Center reported that one person had died.
Asi Aharoni, a police spokesperson, told reporters the attacker had been “neutralized,” without saying whether the assailant was dead.
Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad militant group praised the suspected attack but did not claim it.
Palestinians have carried out scores of stabbings, shootings and car-ramming attacks over the years. Tensions have soared since the war in Gaza began, as Israel has carried out regular military raids into the occupied West Bank that have left hundreds dead. Most appear to have been militants killed during shootouts with Israeli forces, but Palestinians taking part in violent protests and civilian bystanders have also been killed.
The Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency service said 11 women and two children were among the 22 killed in strikes late Saturday on several homes and buildings in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya. It said a further 15 were wounded and the death toll could rise.
The Israeli military said it carried out a strike on militants and disputed what it said were “numbers published by the media,” without providing evidence for its own account.
Israel has waged a massive air and ground offensive in northern Gaza since early October, saying Hamas militants have regrouped there. Hundreds of people have been killed and tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled to Gaza City in the latest wave of displacement in the yearlong war.
The civil defense first responders service operating under the Hamas-run government in Gaza said it had recovered a number of bodies following an Israeli airstrike Sunday on a school in the Shati refugee camp west of Gaza City.
Aid groups have warned of a catastrophic situation in northern Gaza, which was the first target of Israel’s ground offensive and suffered the heaviest destruction of the war. Israel has severely limited the entry of basic humanitarian aid in recent weeks, and the three remaining hospitals in the north — one raided over the weekend — say they have been overwhelmed by waves of wounded.
The U.N. secretary-general in a statement by his spokesperson accused Israeli authorities of denying most aid deliveries of food and medicine amid “harrowing levels of death.”
The International Committee of the Red Cross on Saturday said Israeli evacuation orders and restrictions on the entry of essential supplies had left the civilian population in “horrific circumstances.”
The war began when Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel’s border wall and stormed into southern Israel in a surprise attack on Oct. 7, 2023. They killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250. Some 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, around a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says more than half of those killed were women and children. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
The offensive has devastated much of Gaza and displaced around 90% of its population of 2.3 million, often multiple times. Hundreds of thousands of people have crowded into squalid tent camps, and aid groups say hunger is rampant.
Bentov, Goldenberg, Magdy and Krauss write for the Associated Press. Goldenberg reported from Tel Aviv, Magdy from Cairo and Krauss from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. AP reporters Wafaa Shurafa in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Jon Gambrell in Dubai, and Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.