GAZA CITY, Palestine / ISTANBUL

The Israeli army has killed 42 people and injured several others in the Gaza Strip early Wednesday, according to medics.

Gaza's Civil Defense said in a statement that 22 people, including nine children and six women, were killed, and many others were injured in an Israeli airstrike that targeted displaced civilians in the Al-Daraj neighborhood of Gaza City.

Two more people lost their lives after a residential building was shelled in the same neighborhood, medical sources told Anadolu.

In the Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City, five people were killed and others were injured, while another civilian was killed in the Al-Ramla neighborhood by the Israeli army.

In the Tel Hawa neighborhood, the army targeted a vehicle carrying displaced Palestinians and killed two people and injured others.

On Sept. 21, the Israeli army announced it was escalating ground operations in Gaza City, which began on Aug. 11 with a large-scale attack, as part of a plan approved by the government to gradually occupy the Gaza Strip in August.

In the central Gaza Strip, Israeli strikes on two houses in the Nuseirat refugee camp claimed the lives of five Palestinians and injured many others, including women and children.

Five aid-seekers lost their lives to Israeli gunfire near an aid distribution site in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip.

The Israeli army has killed more than 65,300 Palestinians, most of them women and children, in Gaza since October 2023. The relentless bombardment has rendered the enclave uninhabitable and led to starvation and the spread of diseases.