19 October 2024 Beit Lahia attacks

On 19 October 2024, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) conducted attacks on Beit Lahia, a city in the North Gaza Governorate near Beit Hanoun and Jabalia. According to reporting, the strikes killed at least 92 Palestinians and injured more than 100, with additional people believed missing and trapped under rubble. The attacks primarily struck the western regions of the city, hitting densely packed residential blocks that housed both local residents and people who had been displaced from other parts of Gaza.

The attacks came against a backdrop of a sustained Israeli military presence in the area dating to December 2023, when the IDF began an offensive in Beit Lahia, including a raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital on 12 December and an incident on 16 December in which Israeli bulldozers struck people sheltering outside the hospital. Israel withdrew from most of the Gaza Strip in April 2024, aside from the Netzarim Corridor, before launching a second invasion of northern Gaza in May 2024. By June 2024, Gaza's Civil Defence described the destruction in Beit Lahia as extensive. Evacuation orders had earlier directed residents of northern Gaza toward Beit Lahia.

On the day of the attack, eyewitnesses reported that a whole residential block in the west of Beit Lahia was targeted and destroyed by multiple airstrikes, with buildings collapsing on civilians who had not been able to evacuate. Gaza's civil defense spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal said the targeted block had been leveled. Rescue and medical response was reportedly hampered by continued Israeli artillery fire, the use of surveillance drones, and an internet and telecommunications blackout that had begun the day before. Hospitals in the area faced shortages of medical supplies and staff.

Responses to the attack diverged sharply. The IDF said Gaza's Government Media Office casualty figures were exaggerated and stated the strike was intended to be precise and targeted at a Hamas objective in what it described as an active war zone. Hamas's government media office called the incident a "horrifying massacre," and a Hamas political bureau member urged international attention and protest actions. Egypt condemned the attack, and Qatar's state news agency criticized the Israeli military's conduct. The UN's special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Tor Wennesland, condemned continuing attacks on civilians and called for the war to end. The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation issued a statement characterizing the event as part of a broader pattern of harm to Palestinians in violation of international law and ICJ orders.