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Gaza City Cafe Hit by Deadly Strike

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An Israeli airstrike on a popular beachfront coffee shop in Gaza City on Monday afternoon killed more than two dozen Palestinians and injured dozens more, according to local medical workers.

Mohammad Abu Salmiya, the director of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, said that more than 30 people had been killed and more than 50 wounded in the strike at the cafe. Many of the injured are in critical condition, he said. The Gaza health ministry did not immediately provide an official death and injury toll.

The Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment on the strike.

The beachside cafe that was struck, the Baqaa Cafe and Restaurant, overlooked the water and was a place Gazans went to escape the heat, use the internet, work, study or simply gather.

The strike came a day after the Israeli military issued evacuation warnings for parts of Gaza City and other areas in northern Gaza, signaling that it would intensify operations there.

The remains of a badly damaged building.

A New York Times photographer who went to the scene of the seaside strike shortly afterward found that the cafe had been destroyed and was awash in the blood of the dead and the wounded. Tables and seating were smashed and strewn about from the blast, and the area was littered with personal effects.