AT LEAST 20 Palestinians were killed by an Israeli air attack on northern Gaza, officials said today.

The victims, mostly women and children, were killed when the Israeli military attacked a home where several displaced families were sheltering in the town of Beit Lahiya, near the border with Israel, according to Hossam Abu Safiya, the director of the barely functioning Kamal Adwan Hospital, which received the casualties.

The Israeli military claimed that it targeted a weapons storage facility from which a militant had operated, and, without elaborating, said “numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians.”

The dead included eight women and six children, according to a list provided by the Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency service. Separate strikes elsewhere in Gaza today killed another 10 people, according to health officials.

The Israelis have ordered the complete evacuation of Beit Lahiya, the nearby town of Beit Hanoun and the urban Jabaliya refugee camp, and have blocked almost all humanitarian aid into the area for over a month. 

The United Nations estimates that about 100,000 people remain in the area after tens of thousands of people fled to nearby Gaza City since Israel’s offensive there began, the latest wave of displacement within the besieged territory. 

About 90 per cent of the population of 2.3 million have fled during the 13-month-old war, often multiple times.

The three hospitals serving the area have been largely inaccessible and ambulances have stopped operating.

Israeli troops raided Kamal Adwan Hospital last month — which is prohibited under international law.

But the Israelis claim, without evidence, that Hamas fighters were sheltering there, allegations denied by Palestinian health officials.

The offensive has raised fears that Israel is implementing a surrender-or-starve plan for northern Gaza in which civilians would be ordered out, aid would be cut off and anyone remaining would be considered a fighter.

The Israeli military has denied it is implementing such a plan.

Palestinian officials said that a separate wave of Israeli strikes early today killed 10 people, including four children and two women.

One strike hit a house in the Tufah neighbourhood in Gaza City, killing two children and their parents, according to the Health Ministry’s emergency service. 

Two other children were wounded, it said.

In the central town of Zuweida, an Israeli air strike hit a tent where a displaced family was sheltering, killing four people, including a mother and her two children, according to al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital in the nearby city of Deir al-Balah. 

Another Israeli attack struck a house in Deir al-Balah, killing two people, the hospital said.