Gaza rescuers say 42 killed in Israeli strikes

Israel resumed its military campaign in the Gaza Strip on March 18 after the collapse of a ceasefire that had largely halted the fighting.

Nine people were killed when an Israeli air strike hit a home in Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, civil defence official Mohammed al-Mughayyir told AFP.

AFP footage in the aftermath of a strike on Bureij camp showed Palestinians searching for casualties in the rubble of a flattened building.

"They gave us no warning, no phone call -— we woke up at midnight to smoke, rubble, stones, and shrapnel raining down on us", said Mohammed al-Sheikh, standing amongst collapsed concrete slabs.

"We pulled out martyrs -- bodies and limbs from under the rubble."

Another six people were killed in a strike targeting the Al-Masri family home in the northern city of Beit Lahia, civil defence official Mughayyir added.

In Gaza City, a strike on a community kitchen claimed the lives of six more, the civil defence agency reported.

Across the Gaza Strip, at least 21 other deaths were reported in similar attacks, the agency said.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Thursday that at least 2,326 people have been killed since Israel resumed its campaign in Gaza, bringing the overall death toll since the war broke out to 52,418.

The war erupted after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.

That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Militants also abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still being held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

The Israeli government says its renewed campaign aims to force Hamas to free the remaining captives, although critics charge it puts them in mortal danger.

Israel halted aid deliveries to Gaza on March 2, days before the collapse of the ceasefire which had come into effect on January 19.

The United Nations has repeatedly warned of the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe on the ground, with famine again looming.

On Friday, the International Committee of the Red Cross said the humanitarian response in Gaza was on the "verge of total collapse".

"This situation must not -- and cannot -- be allowed to escalate further," its deputy director of operations, Pascal Hundt, said in a statement.