GAZA CITY, Palestine

An Israeli airstrike Wednesday targeting a gathering in the town of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip killed several Palestinians and injured many others as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a speech to the US Congress.

Witnesses told Anadolu that an Israeli aircraft launched the strike on a gathering in the Beit Lahia project area, resulting in numerous casualties.

Israeli artillery also intensified shelling in the Zaytoun, Tel al-Hawa and Shuja’iyya neighborhoods in Gaza City, they added.

The Gaza Civil Defense said in a statement that an Israeli strike targeted a group of residents in the Beit Lahia project area, without providing further details.

On Wednesday evening, Netanyahu delivered a speech to the US Congress amid massive protests by thousands of pro-Palestinian supporters in the streets of the capital, Washington, D.C., demanding an end to the war and the cessation of arms supplies to Israel.

Israel, flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive against Gaza since an Oct. 7, 2023 attack by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas.

At least 39,100 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and over 90,000 injured, according to local health authorities.

Over nine months into the Israeli onslaught, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, which ordered it to immediately halt its military operation in the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.

*Writing by Mohammad Sio