UPDATE - Palestinians recover 21 bodies from rubble after Israeli strikes in Gaza

UPDATES WITH DETAILS, CHANGES HEADLINE, DECK, EDITS THROUGH

By Mohamed Majed and Hosni Nadim

GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) - Civil defense teams retrieved the bodies of 21 Palestinians from the rubble on Sunday following Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip.

A medical source said six victims were recovered following an Israeli strike in the southern city of Rafah and their bodies were transferred to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.

Three more bodies were pulled from under the rubble west of Gaza City, the Civil Defense Agency said in a statement.

Ten more victims were retrieved by civil defense teams in Tel al-Hawa neighborhood southwest of Gaza City, medical sources said.

Residents also recovered the bodies of two people following an Israeli airstrike near the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, according to witnesses.

Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas.

Nearly 38,600 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and nearly 88,900 injured, according to local health authorities.

Over nine months into the Israeli onslaught, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered it to immediately halt its military operation in the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.

* Writing by Ikram Kouachi