Death toll hits 43 as Israel pounds Gaza

Nine children and six women are among the latest fatalities in Gaza as the death toll rises to 43 in the last two days, emergency services say.

Fifteen women and children were among 22 Palestinians killed in the latest Israeli strikes on Gaza, hiking the overall death toll to 43 in two days, emergency services said.

Among the dead was at least one militant, as well as nine children and six women, emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra told AFP, while more than 370 people have been wounded.

It was not immediately clear whether the other fatalities were civilians or militants.

In at least four of the strikes, the victims were all women and children.

During the afternoon, a missile struck a house in Al-Maghazi, a beachside refugee camp near Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, killing a mother and her four children, Qudra said.

Earlier, another two women and four children died in a series of raids to the north and east of Gaza City.

Two brothers, aged 13 and 12 were killed in an air strike on Shejaiya, east of Gaza City, while an attack in nearby Zeitun district killed a 27-year-old woman and her 18-month-old son, he said.

Further north, another missile hit Beit Hanun, killing a 40-year-old woman and her 14-year-old son, he added.

An attack shortly after midnight levelled a house in the northern town of Beit Hanun, killing Hafez Hammad, a senior Islamic Jihad commander, and five relatives, including two women and a 16-year-old girl.

In Mughraqa, in central Gaza, medics retrieved the body of an 80-year-old woman from the rubble of her house damaged in an earlier air strike, while in the same area, an Israel missile killed a 60-year-old man and his 31-year-old son in a field near Nusseirat refugee camp.

Elsewhere, a 30-year-old man was killed in a pre-dawn strike on the southern city of Rafah and in the northern town of Beit Lahiya, a missile struck a motorcycle leaving a 30-year-old man clinically dead and severely wounding a second person.

Since the start of Operation Protective Edge early on Tuesday, Israeli warplanes have struck 550 targets in Gaza.


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