Gaza rescuers say 18 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes
Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that rescuers worked through the night, recovering the bodies of 18 people, while dozens more were injured in the "ongoing aggression and Israeli aerial and artillery bombardment" across Gaza.
Bassal reported that the dead included four people killed in an Israeli airstrike targeting a house in central Gaza City.
Another four were killed, and eight injured, when an Israeli missile struck a tent sheltering dozens of displaced people in Deir el-Balah city, in central Gaza.
AFP photographs showed heart-wrenching scenes as relatives retrieved the bodies of their loved ones from a hospital in Gaza City, while others lay covered in blankets within the facility's ward.
On Saturday, Bassal said that Deir el-Balah's mayor, Diab al-Jaro, was killed in a similar strike.
The Israeli military later claimed responsiblity for that strike, accusing Jaro of being "an operative in Hamas's military wing".
The war has displaced the vast majority of Gaza's 2.4 million population, with many forced to flee multiple times.
The Israeli military has been conducting a sweeping operation in northern Gaza for several weeks, stating that its objective is to prevent the regrouping of Hamas fighters.
Gaza's civil defence agency reports that the operation has resulted in hundreds of deaths, while the Israeli military claims it has eliminated dozens of militants.
Medics in Gaza report severe shortages of medicines in hospitals amid the ongoing military assault.
The fighting has also resulted in casualties among healthcare workers, further straining the healthcare system.
"We are suffering from a shortage of medical staff as a result of the targeting and the martyrdom of a large number of doctors and nurses," said Husam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza, in a statement to journalists.
Abu Safiya added that Israeli air strikes and artillery shelling have continued to target the hospital and its surrounding areas, exacerbating the crisis and endangering both patients and medical crew.
The Israeli military has denied targeting the hospital directly.
The war in the Gaza Strip was sparked by Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack that resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people on Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Since then, Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 44,930 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.