More than 90 Palestinians, including dozens from extended family, were killed in Israeli airstrikes on two homes, rescue workers and hospital officials said on Saturday, a day after the UN chief warned again that nowhere is safe in Gaza and that the Israeli offensive poses huge obstacles . for the distribution of humanitarian aid.
Also Saturday, the Israeli military said troops arrested hundreds of suspected militants in Gaza over the past week and transferred more than 200 of them to Israel for further questioning, providing rare details about a controversial policy of mass roundups of Palestinian men.
The military said more than 700 people with alleged links to militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad have been sent to Israeli detention so far.
Israel declared war after Hamas gunmen stormed the border on October 7, killing some 1,200 people and taking some 240 hostages.
More than 20,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's war to destroy Hamas and more than 53,000 have been injured, according to health officials in Gaza, a besieged territory ruled by the Islamist militant group for the past 16 years.
Despite growing international calls for a ceasefire, Israel has pledged to continue the fighting until Hamas is destroyed and removed from power in Gaza and all hostages are released.
The Biden administration has protected Israel in the diplomatic arena. On Friday, the UN Security Council adopted a watered-down resolution calling for an immediate acceleration of aid deliveries to desperate civilians in Gaza, but not a ceasefire.
The Health Ministry in Gaza said on Saturday evening that 201 people had been killed in the past 24 hours.
On Friday, airstrikes leveled two houses, one in Gaza City and the other in the Nuseirat urban refugee camp in the center of the area.
The attack in Gaza City killed 76 people from the al-Mughrabi family, making it one of the deadliest of the war, said Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesman for Gaza's Civil Defense Department. He gave the names of 16 heads of families within the family, and said the dead included women and children.
Among the dead were Issam al-Mughrabi, a senior UN Development Program worker, his wife and their five children.
The loss of Issam and his family has affected us all deeply. The UN and civilians in Gaza are not targets, said Achim Steiner, head of the organization. This war must end.
Later Friday, a strike pulverized the home of Mohammed Khalifa, a local TV journalist in Nuseirat, killing him and at least 14 others, according to officials at the nearby Al Aqsa Martyrs' Hospital where the bodies were taken. Mourners held funeral prayers in the hospital courtyard on Saturday as rescue teams continued to search for survivors. The legs of at least two bodies were seen under what appeared to be a collapsed roof.
Israel blames Hamas for the high number of civilian casualties, citing the militants' use of crowded residential areas and tunnels. Israel has launched thousands of airstrikes since October 7 and has largely refrained from commenting on specific attacks.
The Israeli offensive has been one of the most devastating military campaigns in recent history, displacing nearly 85 percent of Gaza's 2.3 million residents and razing large parts of the small coastal enclave. More than half a million people in Gaza (a quarter of the population) are hungry, according to a report this week from the United Nations and other agencies.
Military spokesman Vice Admiral Daniel Hagari said late on Friday that the armed forces were expanding the ground offensive to other parts of the strip, with a focus on the south. He said operations are also continuing in the northern half of Gaza, where the Israeli ground offensive initially focused. The army said it was carrying out airstrikes on Hamas fighters in several locations in Gaza City.
The army's statement on the detentions followed earlier Palestinian reports of large-scale roundups of teenage boys and men from homes, shelters and hospitals in northern Gaza, where ground forces have established firmer control. Some of the released prisoners say they were stripped to their underwear, beaten and held with minimal water for days.
Hamas called on the International Committee of the Red Cross and other global organizations to pressure Israeli authorities to reveal the whereabouts and conditions of hundreds of people detained in Gaza.
The Israeli military has denied allegations of abuse and said those not linked to militants were quickly released.
Israel says it has killed thousands of Hamas militants, including about 2,000 in the past three weeks, but has presented no evidence. It said 139 soldiers were killed in the ground offensive.
After the UN resolution, it was not immediately clear how and when aid deliveries would accelerate. Currently, trucks enter through two border crossings Rafah on the border with Egypt and Kerem Shalom on the border with Israel. Fewer than 100 trucks entered border crossings on Friday, far below the daily average of 500 before the war, according to the UN.
Both crossings were closed on Saturday by mutual agreement between Israel, Egypt and the UN, Israeli officials said.
Ahead of the Security Council vote, the US negotiated to remove language that would have given the UN the authority to inspect aid going to Gaza, something Israel says it must continue to do itself to ensure material does not reach Hamas reaches.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Friday that it is a mistake to measure the effectiveness of the humanitarian operation by the number of trucks.
The real problem is that the way Israel is carrying out this offensive is creating enormous obstacles to the distribution of humanitarian aid within Gaza, he said. He said the conditions for an effective relief operation are not in place: security, personnel who can work safely, logistical capacity and the resumption of commercial activities.
Guterres said much more is needed immediately to end the nightmare for the people of Gaza.
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