Nearly 50 Palestinians killed in new wave of Israeli airstrikes in battered Gaza

GAZA CITY, Palestine/ANKARA

At least 48 Palestinians were killed and dozens injured in a new wave of Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, medics said.

In the latest attack, the Israeli army opened fire and killed ten Palestinians waiting for aid northwest of Gaza City, a medical source said.

Nine more aid seekers were killed near a distribution point in the Qizan an-Najjar area, south of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.

Three people lost their lives and more than 15 others were injured when warplanes struck a tent sheltering displaced people in al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis, a medical source said.

Two more Palestinians were shot and killed by Israeli forces while waiting to receive aid near distribution centers in central and southern Gaza.

Rescue workers retrieved the bodies of 12 people from the rubble in the Morag area north of Rafah, following coordination with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the Rafah Civil Defense Directorate said in a statement.

The victims were transferred to the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, it added.

Separately, four people were killed and others wounded when an Israeli airstrike hit an apartment in the Al-Rimal neighborhood in western Gaza City, medical officials said.

Three Palestinians were killed in an Israeli strike targeting a civilian gathering in Tel al-Hawa, a neighborhood in the same city, medical sources told Anadolu.

Elsewhere in the Gaza Strip, another Palestinian was killed and several others were injured in an Israeli attack on a group of civilians near the Bani Suheila roundabout, east of Khan Younis in the south of the territory.

The same sources said one person was killed and others were wounded when Israeli artillery shelled a house in the Block 3 area of Al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.

A young man and his wife died after debris from a nearby building collapsed on their tent following an Israeli strike.

A Palestinian waiting for aid trucks in northern Gaza was shot and killed by Israeli forces while several other people were injured in the Al-Waha area and transferred to the Al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City for treatment.

Rejecting international calls for a ceasefire, the Israeli army has pursued a brutal offensive on Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, killing over 59,700 Palestinians, most of them women and children. The relentless bombardment has destroyed the enclave and led to food shortages.

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants 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.