Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli strikes killed at least 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.
Dozens of Palestinians have been killed almost daily since Israel resumed its military offensive in Gaza on March 18, ending a two-month ceasefire that had brought relative calm to the territory.
"The death toll as a result of Israeli air strikes since dawn today is at least 44, including 21 in Khan Yunis," a city in the southern Gaza Strip, civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.
One strike killed six people on Al-Nakheel Street in the Al-Tuffah neighbourhood of Gaza City, where a group had gathered near a bakery, Bassal said.
Three children were among the dead, he said.
A Hamas statement called the strike "a deliberate act of child killing" and a "confirmation of the sadistic and barbaric nature of the occupation and its fascist leaders".
AFP footage captured thick plumes of smoke rising from central and northern Gaza as Israeli forces bombarded areas of the besieged Palestinian territory.
A ceasefire brokered by the United States, Egypt and Qatar ended on March 18 as Israel resumed its offensive in response to the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023.
Elsewhere Israel said it shot dead "one terrorist" in the West Bank for throwing rocks, with Palestinian officials claiming it was a 14-year-old boy with US citizenship.
Gaza has since endured a new wave of relentless strikes and artillery fire, with dozens of fatalities reported on a near-daily basis.
Efforts to revive the ceasefire and secure the release of the remaining hostages held in Gaza have so far failed.
The stalled efforts will be on the agenda during a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump, set for Monday in Washington.
Netanyahu ordered a "strong response", his office said, after the Israeli military reported about 10 "projectiles" had been fired from Gaza within minutes of each other on Sunday. Most were intercepted.
With AFP
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