Israel kills at least 9 Palestinians in airstrikes on southern, central Gaza Strip

GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) – Israel killed at least nine Palestinians, including a child, in three airstrikes targeting southern and central Gaza Strip.

An Israeli drone targeted a gathering of Palestinians east of the Zeitoun neighborhood southeast of Gaza City, killing two and wounding another, a source at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in the city said.

In the southern Gaza Strip, “five citizens, including a child, were martyred in an Israeli airstrike targeting a home in southern Khan Younis,” the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

Israeli warplanes bombed a house belonging to the Abu Hassaneh family in the Miraj area between the cities of Khan Younis and Rafah, killing five family members, including a child and three women, it added.

Separately, civil defense crews said that in the central Gaza Strip, two Palestinians were killed and three others injured when Israeli warplanes bombed a house belonging to the Al-Dayah family in the Bureij refugee camp.

Israel has killed nearly 39,500 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured nearly 91,300, according to local health authorities.

After almost 10 months of Israel’s attacks, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water, and medicine.

According to a study done by The Lancet journal last month, the total number of casualties in Palestine including those missing, buried under the rubble, dying of infectious diseases and malnutrition since October could actually be well over 186,000 — 8% of the population of Gaza.