France 'firmly condemns' deadly Israeli strike in north Gaza
France on Wednesday "firmly condemned" an Israeli strike in Gaza the previous day that rescuers said collapsed a building, killing at least 93 people including a large number of children.
"France firmly condemns the Israeli strike against a building in Beit Lahia in north Gaza on October 29 that killed almost 100 people, including women and children," the foreign ministry said in a statement.
"France also condemns recent Israeli strikes on hospitals in the north" of the Palestinian territory, it added. "The siege imposed on north Gaza must be ended immediately."
The military official said it was not a planned strike and troops did not know the building was being used as a shelter for displaced people.
They also said there were discrepancies between the number of casualties reported and what the military had observed.
The director of the nearby Kamal Adwan hospital - which only has two doctors and limited nursing staff following an Israeli raid last week - said in a voice message recorded on Tuesday that it had received the bodies of more than 25 people killed in the strike and that another 77 were trapped under the rubble.
About 45 injured, including children and women, had also been brought to the hospital either by horse-drawn carts or by people carrying them, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya added.
We see the racist regime's mind at work: if you're not a registered Jew, you're a liar. If you are registered as a Jew, nobody can question what you say.
We can imagine what's happening in Netanyahu's inner circle: "Who are you calling a 'bad Jew', you bad Jew?" Bibi tries to calm them down: "Look, go bomb a few dozen people, you'll feel better, and we can all get back to work."
You cannot destroy an idea. Israel barely realizes that some people don't like Zionism, sufficient to rate them all as cannon-fodder: food for cannons. As that fact becomes public, at last, Israel kills more to make itself feel better.
An Israeli military official has told the BBC that it carried out a deadly strike on a five-storey residential building in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza on Tuesday in response to seeing a “spotter” on the roof with binoculars observing Israeli forces.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said more than 90 Palestinians, including 25 children, were killed or missing beneath the rubble of the building, which collapsed as a result of the strike.