Israeli airstrikes kill civilians in Gaza
Palestinians inspected the site of an Israeli strike in Gaza’s Khan Younis, which killed several people, according to Palestinian health officials.
Gaza's Health Ministry said 19 people including children were killed in an Israeli strike at a U.N. clinic in Gaza’s Jabalia being used to house displaced people.
Israel's military said it had struck a building previously used as a clinic that it said was serving as a Hamas command and control centre to plan attacks, and that the military had used surveillance to mitigate the risk to civilians.
The Palestinian civil defense agency said at least 12 bodies had been recovered by its teams in Khan Younis after a wave of airstrikes was reported overnight.
Israel announced a major expansion of military operations in Gaza, saying large areas of the enclave would be seized and added to its security zones, accompanied by large-scale evacuations of the population.
In a statement, Defence Minister Israel Katz said evacuations would take place from areas where there was fighting, while urging Gazans to eliminate Hamas and return Israeli hostages as the only way to end the war.
He said the operation would clear out militants and infrastructure "and seize large areas that will be added to the security zones of the State of Israel."
The Israeli military had already issued evacuation warnings to Gazans living around the southern city of Rafah and towards the city of Khan Younis, telling them to move to the Al-Mawasi area on the shore, previously designated a humanitarian zone.
Israel invaded Gaza following the devastating attack on communities in southern Israel by thousands of Hamas-led gunmen that killed 1,200 people according to Israeli tallies, and saw 251 taken as hostages into Gaza.
The Israeli campaign has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, according to Palestinian health officials, and ravaged the Gaza Strip forcing almost the entire population of 2.3 million from their homes, leaving hundreds of thousands in tents and improvised shelters.
