Death toll rises to 12 with dozens injured in a strike on a crowded Gaza shelter

A United Nations official says the death toll from a strike on a crowded shelter in Gaza has risen to 12, with more than 75 wounded.

Thomas White, a senior official with the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, said on Thursday that 15 of those wounded were in critical condition.

UNRWA says two tank shells hit a building in a shelter housing thousands of displaced Palestinians on Wednesday in the southern city of Khan Younis, which has seen heavy fighting in recent days.

The building caught fire, it said.

It did not directly blame Israel, which is the only party to the conflict that has tanks.

The Israeli military said it has “currently ruled out” that the strike was carried out by its aircraft or artillery but was still investigating. It says the building might have been hit by a Hamas rocket.

The fighting in Khan Younis has isolated its two main hospitals, Nasser and Al-Amal, stranding hundreds of patients and thousands of displaced people inside.

Mr White says a third hospital was evacuated overnight, and that among the patients who departed were women who had just undergone caesarean sections.

Thousands of people rushed to escape farther south in recent days, crowding into shelters and tent camps near the border with Egypt.

The Health Ministry in Gaza says more than 25,700 people have been killed and another 63,000 wounded in the enclave since the October 7 attack in southern Israel, when militants from Gaza killed around 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages.