Another 42 people were wounded in the strike on Thursday in the Nuseirat refugee camp, according to the Awda Hospital, which received the casualties.

Among the dead were seven children as young as 11 months, as well as three women, AP reported.

Israel has been carrying out a major offensive in northern Gaza for more than two weeks. Hundreds of people have been killed and tens of thousands have fled their homes. 

Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed that the death toll from the Israeli war since October 7 has risen to 42,847 people, with an additional 100,544 injured. The majority of the fatalities were women and children.

Civil defence halted in north Gaza 

Gaza's civil defence agency said Thursday it can no longer provide first responder services in the north of the territory due to threats from Israeli occupation forces.

"We are unable to provide humanitarian services to citizens in the northern governorate of the Gaza Strip due to threats from Israeli occupation forces, who have threatened to kill and bomb our teams if they remain inside Jabalia camp," said Mahmud Bassal, the agency's spokesman told AFP.

First responders had been "targeted" on several occasions, leaving "several members injured, and others are left bleeding on the streets with no one able to rescue them", he told AFP.

Bassal published a photograph of a burnt truck on social media, saying it was "the only civil defence vehicle in the northern Gaza Strip governorate", which includes Gaza City.

The truck, he said, was "targeted by the Israeli army" in the northern city of Beit Lahia, just north of Jabalia and near Gaza's northern border with Israel.

Military activity in adjacent Beit Lahia has also forced Palestinians to flee, including Raghib Hamuda, who moved his family to Gaza City after Israeli forces issued call for the evacuation of a shelter last week.

"The military bulldozers demolished the school after evacuating all the displaced people," he told AFP by phone, adding his family faced "checkpoints and gunfire along the way" to Gaza City, where they found shelter in another school.

"The shelling is intense, and the army has demolished dozens of houses," he said.

 ‘catastrophic’ shortage of medical supplies

The director of a hospital in the northern Gaza Strip says it is facing a “catastrophic” shortage of basic supplies and that ambulances can no longer service the facility.

Dr. Hossam Abu Safiyeh, the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, said in a video message released Thursday that some 150 wounded people are being treated there, including 14 children in intensive care or the neonatal department.

“There is a very large number of wounded people, and we lose at least one person every hour because of the lack of medical supplies and medical staff,” he said.

“Our ambulances can’t transfer wounded people,” he said. “Those who can arrive by themselves to the hospital receive care, but those who don’t just die in the streets.”

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Footage shared with The Associated Press shows medical staff tending to premature babies and several older children in hospital beds, some with severe burns. One child is seen attached to a breathing machine, with bandages on her face and flies hovering over her.

“We are providing the bare minimum to patients. Everyone is paying the price of what is happening now in northern Gaza,” Abu Safiyeh said.

Kamal Adwan is one of three hospitals in the north left largely inaccessible because of the fighting. The war has gutted the health system across Gaza, with only 16 of 39 hospitals even partially functioning, according to the World Health Organization.