An Israeli airstrike on tents for displaced Palestinians at a Gaza hospital complex killed at least four people and injured at least 70, many of them critically, as Israel's genocide in the besieged enclave continues into a second year.

The attack on the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the city of Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip in the early hours of Monday hit tents where many displaced Palestinians had sought refuge.

Videos showed rescuers trying to save people as they struggled to contain a massive fire. The death toll is expected to continue to rise.

“What happened was that we woke up to smoke, flames, fire and burning pieces falling on the tents from all directions. “The explosions scared us in our tents and outside where we live behind Al-Aqsa Hospital,” Om Ahmad Radi, a survivor at the scene, told Al Jazeera.

“The fire trucks couldn’t come here. There were so many burnt and charred bodies everywhere. The amount of fires and explosions was enormous. We experienced one of the most terrible and brutal nights.”

The Gaza media office said it was the seventh time this year that Israel had attacked the Al-Aqsa hospital compound and the third time in recent weeks, killing Palestinians forced to leave their homes to escape from houses.

Al Jazeera's Hani Mahmoud reported from Deir el-Balah: “Around 20 to 30 tents were completely destroyed and completely burned.

“As the fire spread, there were many people in the tents who could not be saved,” he said. “We have to expect a large number (of deaths) because these tents are placed close together, back to back and in a small space in the courtyard of the hospital.”

Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee confirmed that the Israeli air force carried out the attack and claimed without evidence that the hospital complex was used by the Palestinian group Hamas as a “command and control center” for attacks against Israel.

Since the onslaught began more than a year ago, Israeli forces have repeatedly attacked medical facilities in Gaza, with the enclave's health sector already overwhelmed and infrastructure destroyed.

Last week, an independent United Nations International Commission of Inquiry (CoI) released a report finding that Israel is pursuing “a concerted policy of destroying the health system in the Gaza Strip.”

Meanwhile, at least 22 more Palestinians were killed and 80 others injured on Sunday when Israeli tanks shelled a school housing displaced people in Nuseirat, also in central Gaza.

The Israeli genocide has destroyed large swaths of the Gaza Strip and displaced about 90 percent of its 2.3 million people, many of them multiple times.

In the north of the Gaza Strip, Israeli air and ground troops have been besieging Jabalia for days, claiming that Hamas fighters have regrouped there. Over the past year, Israeli troops have repeatedly returned to the refugee camp in Jabalia, which dates back to the 1948 war over the creation of Israel.

The attack on Jabalia follows Israeli orders to completely evacuate the northern Gaza Strip, including Gaza City. An estimated 400,000 Palestinians remain in the north. According to the United Nations, no food has entered the northern Gaza Strip since October 1st.

The military confirmed that hospitals were also included in its evacuation orders, adding that it had not set a timetable and was working with local authorities to facilitate patient transfers.

But Fares Abu Hamza, an official with the Gaza Health Ministry's emergency service, told the Associated Press news agency that the bodies of a “large number of martyrs” were still not being collected from the streets and from under the rubble in the north.

“We can’t reach them,” he said, claiming that dogs ate some remains.

Following a cross-border attack by Hamas on October 7 last year, Israel has continued its brutal offensive against Gaza, despite a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire.

Since then, more than 42,200 people, mostly women and children, have been killed and about 98,400 injured, according to local health authorities.