Photos show an explosion causing heavy damage in Gaza’s Jabaliya neighborhood.

Photos taken on Tuesday showed at least one large crater and significant damage to buildings in northern Gaza’s Jabaliya neighborhood, home to a long-standing refugee camp.

The Gaza Health Ministry, which is controlled by Hamas, said the damage was the result of an attack by Israel that killed and injured “hundreds” of people, a statement that could not immediately be verified. An Israeli military spokesman said it was investigating the reports.

Dr. Marwan Sultan, medical director of the Indonesian hospital near Jabaliya, said his facility was treating hundreds of injured people and dozens more were killed.

News agency photos Tuesday afternoon showed civilian rescuers searching through the rubble of shattered buildings, some three or four stories high, as civilians carried victims.

Dozens of people stood around a crater, which was several meters deep and contained large chunks of concrete. It was not immediately clear from the photos what had caused the crater, or when exactly it had formed. Other craters were visible in the background.

According to a satellite image of the camp by the private company Planet Labs, there was no crater in the area of ​​the explosion on Monday.

A later photo published by Reuters showed a Red Crescent ambulance on the street and more than 30 white sheets wrapped around what appeared to be bodies lying on the ground.

Jabaliya is the largest of eight refugee camps in the Gaza Strip and is populated by people displaced from what is now Israel in the 1940s and their descendants. Although it is called a camp, the area is actually built up and densely populated, rather than a tent city. The camp covers an area of ​​1.4 square kilometers and is located just north of Gaza City, the largest urban settlement in Gaza.

The United Nations said more than 116,000 people were registered in the camp this year with UNRWA, the U.N. agency that helps Palestinians, although it was unclear how many had left in recent weeks.

On Friday, Israel launched an invasion of Gaza in retaliation for Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, which killed 1,400 people. Israeli forces are advancing towards Gaza City from both the north and east, amid a barrage of airstrikes that have caused widespread casualties.

The Israeli army has repeatedly warned civilians to leave northern Gaza and move to the south of the enclave. But it has also carried out bombings in the south.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, more than 8,500 people were killed as Israel carried out its campaign of retaliatory airstrikes, including more than 3,500 children.

Aaron Bokserman, Lauren Leatherby And Hiba Yazbek reporting contributed.