Gaza’s civil defence agency said at least 56 people were killed in Israeli strikes across the Palestinian territory in the past 24 hours, including a journalist.
At least 12 people killed on Monday in the latest strikes, part of renewed military operations after a two-month truce, come with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington for talks with US President Donald Trump later on Monday, where the ongoing fighting is set to be on the agenda.
Israeli strikes killed 44 people on Sunday as Israel's prime minister vowed a "strong response" to a rare salvo of rockets fired from the Hamas-ruled territory.
One Israeli strike on Sunday hit the home of the Abu Issa family in Deir el-Balah, killing women and children, according to witnesses.
An air strike hit a tent used by journalists in a makeshift displacement camp in the southern Gaza Strip, killing two people, said civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal.
The Hamas government media office said journalist Hilmi al-Faqaawi, who worked for a local news agency, was killed in the attack in the city of Khan Yunis. Bassal said that nine others, all journalists, were wounded.
Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military did not immediately comment on the reported strike.
In central Gaza, Bassal said an Israeli air strike hit three houses in Deir el-Balah city and killed at least seven people.
"Some people remain trapped beneath the rubble," the spokesman said.
Deir el-Balah was the subject of an Israeli evacuation order late Sunday, warning residents of imminent attacks in response to a rocket salvo that the military said was fired from the area.
Further north, Bassal said a strike hit "a group of civilians" in Gaza City's Zeitun neighbourhood, killing three people.
The civil defence spokesman said there was also ongoing artillery shelling across Gaza and home demolitions in Rafah, on the territory's southern border with Egypt.
Israel has significantly increased its control over the Gaza Strip since resuming its conflict with Hamas last month. It now holds more than 50% of Gaza, pushing Palestinians into smaller areas of land.
Ahead of his Washington visit, Netanyahu said that discussions with Trump would address the Gaza war and efforts to secure the release of hostages seized during Hamas's October 7, 2023 resistance campaign and still held in the territory.
Israel resumed intense strikes on Gaza on March 18, and the weeks-long ceasefire with Hamas that the United States, Egypt and Qatar had brokered collapsed. Efforts to restore the truce have so far failed.
According to the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, at least 1,391 Palestinians have been killed in the renewed Israeli operations, taking the overall death toll since the start of the war to 50,752.
