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Israeli airstrikes overnight in southern Gaza killed at least 51 people as ground operations and airstrikes intensified in the heavily targeted city of Khan Younis, Palestinian medical officials confirmed Wednesday.
Israel has continued to strike targets across Gaza nearly a year after the Oct. 7 Hamas incursion ignited the war, even as attention has shifted to Lebanon, where Israel is attacking Hezbollah, and to Iran, which launched a ballistic missile attack on Israel late Tuesday.
The Health Ministry in Gaza said at least 51 people were killed and 82 wounded in the operation in Khan Younis that began early Wednesday.
The European Hospital in Khan Younis said it received the bodies after heavy Israeli airstrikes and ground operations in the city. It said the dead include several women and children, and that dozens of people were wounded.
Records at the hospital show that at least seven women and 12 children, as young as 22 months old, were among those killed.
Another 23 people, including two children, were killed in separate strikes across Gaza, according to local hospitals.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Dr. Saleh al-Hams, head of the nursing department at the European Hospital, said dozens of dead and wounded people were brought to his facility and the Nasser Hospital starting at around 3 a.m. Some of the wounded were in critical condition, meaning the death toll could rise, he said.
Residents said Israel had carried out heavy airstrikes as its ground forces staged an incursion into three neighborhoods in Khan Younis.
Mahmoud al-Razd, a resident who said four relatives were killed in the raids, described heavy destruction and said first responders had struggled to reach destroyed homes.
“The explosions and shelling were massive,” he told The Associated Press. “Many people are thought to be under the rubble and no one can retrieve them.”
Israel carried out a weekslong offensive earlier this year in Khan Younis that left much of Gaza’s second-largest city in ruins.
Over the course of the war, Israeli forces have repeatedly returned to areas of Gaza where they have previously fought Hamas and other resistance groups as they regrouped.
Hamas-led resistance members caused some 1,200 deaths during the Oct. 7 incursion and took around 250 hostages. Around 100 are still in captivity in Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s genocidal war, in response, has killed over 41,500 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to local health authorities.
The offensive is among the deadliest and most destructive military campaigns in recent history. It has flattened wide areas of Gaza and displaced 90% of its 2.3 million people, often multiple times.
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