Jabalia, Gaza - Gaza's civil defense agency said an Israeli air strike killed at least 15 people in the territory's north on Wednesday, in what it called the first deadly attack of the New Year.

"The world welcomed the New Year with celebrations and festivities, while we witnessed 2025 begin with the first Israeli massacre in the town of Jabalia just after midnight," agency spokesperson Mahmud Bassal told AFP.

"Fifteen people were martyred and more than 20 were injured" in the strike on a house where displaced people were living, he said.

Since October 6, the Israeli military has been conducting a major land and air assault on northern Gaza, particularly targeting Jabalia and its adjacent refugee camp.

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On Monday, UN human rights experts said the siege appears to be part of an effort "to permanently displace the local population as a precursor to Gaza's annexation."

Bassal said those living in the house were members of the Badra, Abu Warda, and Taroush families who had sought refuge there.

Nearly all of Gaza's 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once since the genocide began on October 7 last year.

The dead and wounded from the strike in Jabalia were taken to Al-Mamadani Hospital, a rescuer said. A relative said rescuers were still searching for any survivors.

"The house has turned into a pile of debris," said Jibri Abu Warda, adding that the strike hit at around 1:00 AM. He said the explosions shook the area, and rescuers reached the targeted house only in the morning.

"It was a massacre, with body parts of children and women scattered everywhere. They were sleeping when the house was bombed," Abu Warda said.

"No one knows why they targeted the house. They were all civilians."

At Al-Mamadani Hospital, women wept over shrouded bodies in the morgue, some of them those of children.

"We don't want aid, we want the war to stop. Enough with the bloodshed! Enough!" said Khalil Abu Warda, a relative of the deceased.

The assault, which began on October 6 in Jabalia, has since expanded across the north of the territory.

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On Friday, the military raided Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, emptying it of its last staff and patients.

The army said it had killed more than 20 people and detained more than 240 in "one of the largest" such operations it has conducted since the start of the genocide.

Those detained included the hospital's director, Hossam Abu Safiyeh, a 51-year-old paediatrician it described as a suspected Hamas militant. The World Health Organization, Amnesty International, and others have called for his immediate release.

"Around me there's nothing but rubble and destruction. People don't know what to do, don't know where to go. And they don't know how to survive," said Jonathan Whittall, a UN aid official in a video released after he visited the Indonesian Hospital in north Gaza.

A report published Tuesday by the UN Human Rights Office said "insufficient information" has been made available to substantiate "vague" Israeli accusations of Hamas use of hospitals.

Two further Israeli strikes in Gaza on Wednesday killed another 10 people, including children, the civil defense agency said.

Several displaced Gazans said they were facing not just Israeli bombardments but also falling temperatures and heavy rains, which have flooded thousands of tents across the territory.

"For three days, we haven't slept out of fear that our children would fall sick because of the winter, as well as fear of missiles falling on us," said Samah Darabieh, a displaced woman now living in Beit Lahia.

"Two days ago, they bombed Al-Wafaa hospital, which is behind us, and the shrapnel dropped here."

The territory's health ministry said seven children have died from the cold over the past week.

Israel has killed at least 45,553 people in Gaza since October 2023, according to figures from the health ministry. The British medical journal Lancet and other experts believe the genocide's true death toll to be far greater, upwards of 186,000 as of last July.