Israeli airstrikes leveled apartment buildings in a refugee camp near Gaza City on Tuesday, and footage showed rescuers pulling men, women and children from the rubble.

Israel said the strike destroyed a Hamas command center built into civilian homes and a network of tunnels beneath it.

The number of strikes at the Jabaliya camp was not immediately known. The Israeli military said a large number of fighters were killed, including the commander who led Hamas operations in the northern Gaza Strip.

Dr. Atef Al-Kahlot, director of the nearby hospital where the victims were taken, said hundreds were injured or killed, but he did not give exact numbers. Neither party nor account could be independently verified.

The strike underscored an expected rise in casualties on both sides as Israeli forces fighting Hamas militants push deeper into densely populated areas of northern Gaza. Israel promised to crush Hamas, the ability to control Gaza or threaten Israel after the bloody riots on October 7 that triggered the war.

Israel said two of its soldiers were killed in fighting in the northern Gaza Strip, the first military death it reported after a ground offensive on the tiny Mediterranean enclave intensified late last week.

Several hundred thousand Palestinians remain in northern Gaza during a ground offensive. They have invaded homes or thousands are packed into hospitals already full of patients and without supplies.