DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — An Israeli strike on a mosque in the Gaza Strip early Sunday killed at least 19 people, Palestinian officials said, as Israel intensified its bombardment of northern Gaza and southern Beirut in its widening war on Iran-allied militant groups across the region. Israel is still battling Hamas in Gaza nearly a year after its Oct. 7 attack , and has opened a new front against Hezbollah in Lebanon, which has been trading fire with Israel along the border since the war in Gaza began.
Israel has also vowed to strike Iran itself after it launched a ballistic missile attack on the country last week. The widening conflict risks drawing in the United States, which has provided crucial military and diplomatic support to Israel, as well as U.S.
-allied Arab countries that host American forces. Iran-allied militant groups in Syria, Iraq and Yemen have also joined in with long-distance strikes on Israel. The strike in Gaza hit a mosque where displaced people were sheltering near the main hospital in the central town of Deir al-Balah.
Israel said it targeted a Hamas command and control center embedded among civilians, without providing evidence. An Associated Press journalist counted the bodies at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital morgue. Hospital records showed that the dead were all men, while another man was wounded.
Israel also once again ordered evacuations in northern Gaza, where it has repeatedly carried out major air and ground operations against Hamas on.
