The Israeli military said on Thursday that it had caused “unintended harm” to “uninvolved civilians” in two strikes this week on a densely packed Gaza Strip neighbourhood, where, the local health authorities said, dozens were killed.

It was a rare admission of fault by the military over its conduct of the war. The military said it was targeting Hamas on Sunday when it launched two strikes on the central Gaza Strip community of Al Maghazi, which has been flooded with Palestinians uprooted by war and crammed into homes by the dozen.

“A preliminary investigation revealed that additional buildings located near the targets were also hit during the strikes, which likely caused unintended harm to additional uninvolved civilians,” the Israel Defence Forces said.

“The IDF regrets the harm to uninvolved individuals, and is working to draw lessons from the incident,” the statement said. Israel has come under growing international pressure to scale back its heavy air and ground campaign in Gaza, where more than 20,000 people have been reported killed, after a Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7.

Much of the criticism has been not just about the extent of the bombing, but also about the weapons being used, including US-provided 2,000-pound bombs that many military experts say are unsuitable for densely populated areas. After the strike in Al Maghazi, photos showed a grey concrete building gaping with dark holes where rooms used to be, and a mound of debris where men appeared to be digging for survivors, or bodies.

An unidentified military official told Kan News, Israel’s public broadcaster, that an improper choice of weaponry was to blame for the high civilian death toll.

The military’s statement came as excerpts from a leaked draft of a Supreme Court ruling on legislation passed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s initial coalition administration and his far-Right allies to rein in the power of Israeli’s judiciary threatened to rattle his alliance with some of his opponents.