Gaza's civil defense agency said Israeli strikes killed at least 44 people on Sunday, April 6, 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 neighborhood of Gaza City, where a group had gathered near a bakery, Bassal said. Three children were among the dead, he said.
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.