Dozens killed, missing in Israeli strike on Gaza
As many as 34 people were killed and dozens were missing after an Israeli air strike hit a five-storey residential building in Beit Lahia on Sunday, Gaza's civil defence agency said.
"The chances of rescuing more wounded are decreasing because of the continuous shooting and artillery shelling," civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.
Jaber Ghabayen, who was staying elsewhere but whose family lived in the razed building, said "the whole area was shaking" and "we all thought that death was near".
In other deadly strikes, Bassal said attacks on refugee camps in central Gaza killed 15 people, and an Israeli drone strike on the southern city of Rafah killed five.
Also in the south, in the Khan Yunis area, civil defence said an Israeli drone targeted a group of unarmed people securing an aid delivery, killing six.
AFPTV images on Sunday showed Palestinians, including young children and elderly people, who fled Beit Lahia, many on foot, carrying their belongings along a main road.
"All night long, shells were fired at us and we couldn't sleep," said one of them, Umm Mohammed al-Debs.
"In the morning, they dropped leaflets on us telling us to leave," she told AFP.
Another Palestinian displaced from Beit Lahia, Mohammed al-Madhoun, said the Israelis "targeted us, so we left".
Hamas accused Israel of committing a "massacre" in Beit Lahia, saying it was part of its "genocidal war and revenge against unarmed civilians".
Palestinian presidency spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh, whose administration is based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, condemned "this continued bloodshed" and said that the United States -- Israel's main military backer -- was "enabling" it.
Hamas-run Gaza's health ministry on Sunday said the overall death toll in more than 13 months of war had reached 43,846.
The majority of the dead are civilians, according to ministry figures, which the United Nations considers reliable.
Meanwhile, a Lebanese security source said Sunday Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif was killed in a strike on central Beirut's Ras al-Nabaa district, one of relatively few attacks outside the group's strongholds. Israel's military declined to comment.
Previous strikes claimed by Israel have killed senior Hezbollah officials including its leader Hassan Nasrallah in late September.
Afif was part of Nasrallah's inner circle and for years was responsible for Hezbollah's media relations, providing information to journalists, often under the cover of anonymity.
Earlier, AFPTV footage showed several strikes hit Hezbollah's south Beirut stronghold, after Israel's military warned people to evacuate.
Further south, Lebanon's official National News Agency reported seven strikes on Jibsheet village in less than two hours, with more attacks on villages closer to the Israeli border.
Lebanon's army, which is not a party to the conflict, said Israel "directly targeted" an army centre in south Lebanon, killing two soldiers.