13 more Palestinians killed in Israeli bombing of southern Gaza Strip

By Hamdi Yilmaz

GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) - At least 13 Palestinians were killed and many others injured as Israel bombed Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Sunday.

“At least 13 Palestinian citizens were killed over the last 24 hours in a series of Israeli airstrikes and artillery bombardments in various areas of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip,” the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

It reported that 11 people were killed and dozens wounded as Israeli forces targeted civilians in the town of Bani Suheila, east of Khan Yunis.

“Among the casualties were a woman and her daughter who were killed in an Israeli artillery shelling targeting the Majedah family's home in the Al-Mawasi area, west of Khan Yunis,” it added.

“An elderly civilian succumbed to his injuries after his home was targeted by Israeli shelling near the Wadi Gaza area in central Gaza,” in a separate incident, according to the report.

Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 cross-border attack by Hamas which killed nearly 1,200 people.

More than 32,700 Palestinians have since been killed and nearly 75,200 others injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities. Israel has imposed a crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.

The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which asked Israel to do more to prevent famine in Gaza on Thursday. It warned that “Palestinians in Gaza are no longer facing only a risk of famine ... but that famine is setting in.”

* Writing by Ikram Kouachi