MONITORING (SW) – Israeli forces battled Hamas-led fighters in several parts of the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, and Palestinian health officials said at least 57 people were killed in Israeli bombardments of southern and central areas.
The Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas has accused Israel of stepping up attacks in Gaza to try to derail efforts by Arab mediators and the United States to reach a ceasefire deal. Israel says it is trying to root out Hamas fighters.
In Rafah, a southern border city where Israeli forces have been operating since May, five Palestinians were killed in an airstrike on a house, Gaza health officials said. In nearby Khan Younis, a man, his wife, and two children were killed, they said.
Later on Tuesday, an Israeli airstrike on a car killed at least 17 Palestinians and wounded 26 others in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, the officials said.
The airstrike hit near a tented area housing displaced families in Attar Street in the humanitarian-designated area of Al-Mawasi, the health ministry said.
The Israeli military said the strike targeted a senior militant of the Islamic Jihad group, an ally of Hamas.
“We are looking into the reports stating that several civilians were injured as a result of the strike,” the military statement said.
Reuters footage showed residents carrying bodies of the dead and wounded on donkey carts and in rickshaws to hospitals.
In the historic Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, at least four Palestinians were killed in separate shelling and aerial strikes in central Gaza, medics said. An Israeli airstrike also killed four in Sheikh Zayed in northern Gaza, they said.
Hours later, an Israeli air strike on a U.N.-run school that housed displaced families in the Nuseirat camp killed 23 people and wounded many others, health officials said.
Among those killed was local journalist Mohammad Meshmesh, taking the number of journalists killed in the conflict to 160, the Hamas-run Gaza government media office said.
The Israeli military said in a statement it had attacked a group of “terrorists” who had operated from inside the school, after taking steps to mitigate the risk to civilians.
On Tuesday, the military said it had eliminated half of the leadership of Hamas’ military wing, with about 14,000 fighters killed or captured since the start of the war.
At least 38,713 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory offensive since then, Gaza health authorities said in their latest update on Tuesday. Israel also says 326 of its soldiers have been killed in
