UPDATE - Israeli army kills 40 Palestinians in airstrikes across Gaza

UPDATES DEATH TOLL, ADDS DETAILS

By Hosni Nadim

GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) - The Israeli army Thursday morning killed at least 40 Palestinians in a series of airstrikes that targeted guards escorting aid trucks as well as homes sheltering displaced people across the war-torn Gaza Strip.

A medical source told Anadolu that 15 Palestinians were killed and 30 others injured in two Israeli airstrikes that targeted guards escorting aid trucks in the western areas of Rafah and Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.

During the course of its 14-month war on Gaza, Israel has been internationally condemned for both severely limiting aid to the strip, pushing millions of people in the enclave to the brink of starvation, and for targeting people distributing and receiving humanitarian aid.

In the central Gaza Strip, 15 more Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a home sheltering people in the western Nuseirat refugee camp, a medical source told Anadolu.

Witnesses said Israeli drones and gunboats opened heavy fire on the northern areas of the Nuseirat camp, but no information was yet available about injuries.

Another medical source also told Anadolu that seven Palestinians were killed and others injured, including children, in an Israeli airstrike on a building in western Gaza City.

Three more people died of their injuries sustained in Israeli attacks in Gaza City, the source added.

Meanwhile, the Israeli army continued to blow up Palestinian homes and residential buildings in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, according to witnesses.

In October 2023, Israel launched a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip that has so far killed more than 44,800 people, mostly women and children.

On Nov. 21, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and 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 Gaza.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar in Ankara