UPDATE 4 - Children among 66 killed, dozens injured in Israeli attacks across Gaza Strip

REVISES DEATH TOLL

By Ramzi Mahmud, Betul Yilmaz and Rania Abu Shamala

GAZA CITY, Palestine/ISTANBUL (AA) - The Israeli army has killed at least 66 civilians, including children, in attacks across the Gaza Strip since early Wednesday amid a military escalation in Gaza City, according to medical sources.

In the latest attacks, the army killed five Palestinians by targeting a gathering of civilians in the Shati refugee camp west of Gaza City.

Earlier, 12 members of a team securing merchants’ supply trucks were killed and 30 Palestinians receiving aid were injured in an Israeli strike near the Zikim crossing in northern Gaza.

A medical source told Anadolu that three people were killed and 10 injured in an Israeli strike on a house in the town of Jabalia al-Nazla in the northern Gaza Strip.

Another source said five members of a family were killed in an Israeli strike that targeted a tent sheltering displaced Palestinians in the Shati refugee camp in western Gaza City.

Four other people were killed, including children, in a strike on a tent near the Islamic University of Gaza in the same city.

The military also killed two Palestinians when it targeted a gathering of civilians in the Tuffah neighborhood east of Gaza City.

The Israeli army shelled a house in the southern Sabra neighborhood, killing two children and injuring others.

Four more Palestinians from the same family lost their lives and others were injured after the Israeli army struck a building sheltering displaced people in the Zeitoun neighborhood in southeastern Gaza City. The strike also ignited a fire in the building.

Sounds of explosions were also heard in various parts of Gaza City, witnesses said.

The Israeli military intensified air and artillery strikes on Gaza City’s Zeitoun and Sabra neighborhoods for a 10th consecutive day as part of a broader operation launched on Aug. 11 that includes home demolitions, gunfire, the use of booby-trapped devices and forced displacement.

The Israeli public broadcaster KAN reported Wednesday that Defense Minister Israel Katz approved a plan to occupy Gaza City.

In the central Gaza Strip, eight Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire near an aid distribution point in the Nuseirat refugee camp, according to a statement from Al-Awda Hospital.

Six people were killed, including a child, and others injured when Israeli warplanes targeted several houses in the same refugee camp.

A Palestinian woman and her two children, one of them a toddler, were killed in an Israeli strike on their house in a refugee camp in Khan Younis.

Israeli aircraft targeted a tent in al-Mawasi in the same city, injuring 12 people.

Nine Palestinians were killed when warplanes hit tents sheltering displaced families in the al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis.

In another strike, two people were killed, including a child, and several wounded when a house was hit by Israeli shelling near the Suwairha cemetery west of Nuseirat.

Separately, one Palestinian was killed in an airstrike that targeted a home near a bakery in the same camp.

The Israeli army has pursued a brutal assault on the Gaza Strip since October 2023, killing at least 62,122 people and injuring more than 156,700, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

A ministry statement said three more people died of starvation and malnutrition in the last 24 hours, bringing famine-related deaths since October 2023 to 269, including 112 children.

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.