Gaza rescuers say children among 33 killed in Israeli strikes

This picture taken from a position in southern Israel on the border with the Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing in Gaza during Israeli bombardment this weekend. Photo / AFP

• Israeli air strikes today have killed at least 33 people in Gaza, and more than half were children.
• Mahmud Bassal reported 22 deaths in Al-Mawasi and seven in Jabalia, with over 100 wounded.
• The intensified Israeli campaign aims to defeat Hamas amid international concern over Gaza’s humanitarian conditions.

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli airstrikes on Sunday killed at least 33 people, more than half of them children, a day after Israel announced an expanded military campaign.

Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that 22 people were killed and at least 100 others wounded in a pre-dawn attack on tents sheltering displaced Palestinians in Al-Mawasi, in the southern Gaza Strip.

Seven people were killed in a strike on a house in northern Gaza’s Jabalia, Bassal said, while the Al-Awda Hospital in the same area reported damage.

Deaths were also recorded in the central area of Al-Zawayda and in Khan Younis, in the south, according to Bassal.

The Israeli military announced on Saturday that it was intensifying its operations across Gaza in a bid to defeat Hamas militants after more than 19 months of war.

The stepped-up campaign comes amid growing international concern over worsening humanitarian conditions in the Palestinian territory because of an Israeli aid blockade.

– Agence France-Presse