Mass Casualties Feared in North Gaza Blasts Amid Israeli Offensive

Explosions rocked a densely populated area north of Gaza City on Tuesday, flattening whole apartment buildings, leaving deep craters and sending hundreds of casualties to a hospital, where senior doctors said there were scores of dead.

The blasts hit the Jabalia refugee camp, where the Israeli military has been conducting frequent airstrikes as its ground offensive to topple Hamas picks up speed. Hamas-led health authorities said the bombs were Israeli airstrikes that had left hundreds dead and injured. The Israeli military said it was checking reports of strikes in that area.

Video footage aired by Palestinian television networks and Al Jazeera showed hundreds of people digging through the rubble with their hands to extract bodies and survivors, many of them children.

The casualties were taken to the nearby Indonesian Hospital, one of the biggest hospitals in Gaza. Before Tuesday’s attacks, the hospital was already struggling to function, with a shortage of medicines and fuel, and a large number of injured patients.