Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli air strikes on Sunday killed at least 33 people, more than half of them children, a day after Israel announced an expanded military campaign in the besieged territory.
Israel’s military has said the expansion of its operations is aimed at “achieving all the war’s objectives” including releasing hostages and “the defeat of Hamas”.
The intensified assault comes as international concern has mounted over worsening humanitarian conditions in Gaza due to an Israeli aid blockade since March 2.
Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP on Sunday that 22 people were killed and at least 100 others wounded in a predawn attack on tents sheltering displaced Palestinians in Al-Mawasi, in the southern Gaza Strip.
AFPTV footage showed people sifting through the wreckage of ruined shelters and rescuers treating the wounded.
At a hospital in nearby Khan Yunis city, young men mourned over the shrouded bodies of loved ones laid out on the ground outside.
In northern Gaza, Bassal said seven people were killed in a strike on a house in Jabalia, while the Al-Awda hospital in the same area reported damage.
Four more deaths were recorded in the central area of Al-Zawayda and in Khan Yunis in the south, according to Bassal.
He said that the “series of violent Israeli air strikes” across Gaza overnight and in the early morning resulted in a total of “at least 33 martyrs, more than half of whom were children”.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.