Israel has continued its attacks on Gaza, killing at least 24 people, in response to what it says were rockets fired by Palestinian groups.
According to Gaza’s health ministry, no fewer than seven people were killed yesterday, a day after Israeli strikes on the Palestinian territory left 15 dead.
About four of those killed on Wednesday were fighters with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the group said.
Africa Today News, New York reports that three more deaths were reported following an air attack in the early hours of Thursday morning in Khan Younis in the southern part of Gaza.
A 10-year-old Palestinian girl named Layan Madoukh was also killed in a blast at her home in Gaza City in unclear circumstances.
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‘Everything is closed; schools, private and public facilities have shut down, and people have limited going out of their homes.’
Rana Shubair, a Gaza-based writer, said that the Israeli attacks took them ‘by surprise completely’.
‘Everybody was asleep; we suddenly work up to huge explosions,” she told Al Jazeera.
‘Barrages of rockets are being launched from the Gaza Strip towards southern Israeli towns,’ Sayed added. ‘We also saw the Iron Dome trying to intercept these rockets.’
Africa Today News, New York reports that the hostilities amount to the heaviest fighting between the sides in months.
Israeli officials said more than 400 rockets had been fired as of Wednesday evening. Most, they said, were intercepted or fell in open areas, but Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said about one-quarter had misfired and fallen inside Gaza.
The initial Israeli air attacks on Tuesday that set off the exchange of fire killed three senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters and at least 10 civilians, most of them women and children.