GAZA CITY: Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli operations killed 40 people on Saturday in the Palestinian territory devastated by more than 21 months of war.
Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP the dead included nine Palestinians killed in three separate air strikes in Gaza City, in the territory’s north.
Thirteen were killed in five separate air strikes near the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis, including eight in a strike on an encampment for displaced people in Al-Mawasi, Bassal said.
A drone strike killed two in central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp.
The agency said that 14 people were killed by Israeli gunfire while waiting for aid in six separate incidents in northern, central, and southern Gaza.
One of them was killed “after Israeli forces opened fire on people waiting for humanitarian aid” northwest of Gaza City, it added.
Witnesses told AFP that several thousand people had gathered in the area.
Gaza civil defence says Israeli fire kills 93 aid seekers
One of them, Abu Samir Hamoudeh, 42, said the Israeli military opened fire “while the people were waiting to approach the distribution point”, located near an Israeli military post in the Zikim area, northwest of Sudaniyah.
The Israeli military told AFP that its troops fired “warning shots to distance the crowd” after identifying an “immediate threat”.
It added that it was not aware of any casualties as a result of the fire.
Another man was killed by a drone strike near Khan Yunis, while one was killed by artillery fire in the Al-Bureij camp in central Gaza, the civil defence agency said.
The Israeli military said it was continuing its operations in Gaza, adding that it killed members of a “terrorist cell” which it accused of planting an explosive device targeting soldiers.
It added that over the past day the air force had “struck over 100 terror targets” across the Gaza Strip.
Bassal said civil defence teams also recovered the bodies of 12 people following Israeli bombardment north of Rafah the previous night.
The recovery operation was conducted in coordination with the UN humanitarian office (OCHA), he said, adding that the bodies were taken to Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis.
Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify tolls and details provided by the civil defence agency and other parties.
Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza after a deadly attack by Palestinian group Hamas on October 7, 2023.
The Israeli campaign has killed 59,733 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
Hamas’s October 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
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