AT LEAST 87 people are dead or missing after an Israeli airstrike attack on the north Gazan city of Beit Lahiya, according to the Gaza health ministry. 

Many more remain trapped under the rubble and the death toll is expected to rise.

The Israeli military said it struck a “Hamas terror target”. It added that the toll figures given by Gaza authorities “do not align” with the information it possessed.

The military pressed its offensives in both Gaza and Lebanon, where it said its forces “struck approximately 175 terror targets”.

Beit Lahiya and the other northern cities of Jabalia and Beit Hanoun have been under Israeli siege for the last 16 days. No food, water or medical supplies have entered the area since the siege began. 

Internet connectivity went down in northern Gaza yesterday and has not been restored, making it difficult to gather information about the strikes.

Palestinian political party Fatah, the controlling group in the Palestinian Authority, said it holds “the Israeli occupation government fully responsible for the bloody massacre”, according to reporting from Al Jazeera. 

“Palestinian people are being subjected to an organised war of extermination led by the far-right government in Israel with the utmost criminality and hatred,” Fatah added.

Yesterday, Gaza’s Civil Defence agency said that more than 400 Palestinians had been killed in the north over the past two weeks during an ongoing military assault Israel says is aimed at preventing Hamas militants from regrouping. 

“We have recovered more than 400 martyrs from the various targeted areas in the northern Gaza Strip, including Jabalia and its camp, Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun, since the start of the military operation by the occupation army”, civil defence agency spokesman, Mahmud Bassal, told news agency AFP.

“There are dozens of bodies scattered in the streets of Jabalia due to continuous shelling.”

The Israeli military press department when contacted by AFP said it was “checking” the reports.

Observers and critics have accused Israel of laying the groundwork for a permanent occupation and annexation of the north. 

Last week, Prime Minister Banjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party issued invitations to an event on the topic of establishing Israeli settlements in Gaza, according to Israeli newspaper Haaretz. 

The event is set to take place this week and features the pro-settlement group Nachala, whch said it would not be a “theoretical” conference.

“The return to settlement in Gaza is no longer just an idea but a process that is already in advanced stages, with government and public support,” the settler movement said. 

All Israeli settlements on Palestinian land are illegal under international law. 

Taoiseach Simon Harris has said today that he remains “deeply concerned by the humanitarian situation, especially in Northern Gaza, and by reports that access for medical NGOs is being restricted”. 

With reporting from AFP