GAZA CITY, Palestine 

At least seven Palestinians were killed and several others injured Wednesday in an Israeli airstrike targeting the city of Al-Zahra and the town of Al-Mughraqa north of the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.

The bodies of seven martyrs were brought to Al-Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat camp as a result of an Israeli airstrike targeting the city of Al-Zahra and the town of Al-Mughraqa north of the camp, medical sources told Anadolu.

An Anadolu correspondent reported that the Israeli army intensified its airstrikes on the two locations as part of an operation to expand the Nitzarim Corridor between the southern and northern parts of the Gaza Strip.

He added that the past few days witnessed a series of airstrikes in the vicinity of the corridor, which was established by the Israeli army in Nitzarim from east to west of the Strip.

Israel has waged an unrelenting offensive on Gaza since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas last Oct. 7 which killed some 1,200 people.

More than 34,500 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and thousands injured amid mass destruction and severe shortages of necessities.

More than six months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins, pushing 85% of the enclave’s population into internal displacement amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine, according to the UN.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

*Writing by Rania Abu Shamala