Israeli fire kills 29 Palestinians in war-torn Gaza

ANKARA / ISTANBUL

At least 29 Palestinians were killed Tuesday in Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip as Tel Aviv continued an onslaught on the blockaded enclave, according to medics.

Five Palestinians, including two children and an elderly man, were killed and others wounded when a drone bombed a tent sheltering displaced persons in Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

Earlier in the day, three more Palestinians were killed in a drone strike on a civilian gathering in the Qizan al-Najjar area of Khan Younis.

One Palestinian died from injuries sustained days earlier in a strike in the same city.

Rescue teams recovered the bodies of three Palestinian farmers killed in a previous bombing that targeted the al-Manara neighborhood in Khan Younis.

In central Gaza, two Palestinians were killed and others injured in an airstrike that targeted plastic collection workers near the Ain Jalut Towers area in the southern Nuseirat refugee camp.

In Gaza City and northern Gaza, 15 Palestinians were killed during the day and early morning, according to witnesses and medical sources.

Among them were two brothers who died in a strike on the Shejaiya neighborhood. A third Palestinian was killed in a separate bombing in the same area.

Two more were killed in a strike near the Al-Huda Mosque in Shejaiya.

In eastern Gaza, another civilian was killed and several injured in a strike on a gathering in the al-Tuffah neighborhood. Three more Palestinians were killed in a separate strike in the al-Shaaf area.

In northern Gaza, four Palestinians were killed near the Abu Aita factory in eastern Jabalia in an artillery strike. Two others were killed in a drone strike on the town of Beit Hanoun.

Israeli artillery shelling was also reported in the eastern areas of central Gaza, including in the Maghazi refugee camp, but no information was available about injuries.

Israel’s state-owned broadcaster KAN reported Monday that the Israeli military is preparing to expand a ground operation in Gaza, citing stalled ceasefire negotiations with the Palestinian resistance group, Hamas.

The Israeli army renewed its assault on Gaza on March 18, shattering a Jan. 19 ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement with the Palestinian resistance group Hamas.

More than 52,300 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in a brutal Israeli onslaught since October 2023, most of them women and children.

The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants last November 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.