Journalist and her family among 12 killed in Gaza

Israeli airstrikes pounded areas across the Gaza Strip Monday killing 12, including a journalist and her family, medics said.

Palestinian health officials said Wafa al-Udaini, who wrote articles about the war in English advocating the Palestinian viewpoint, was killed when a missile struck her house in the central city of Deir al-Balah, also killing her husband and their two children.

Udaini's death raised the number of Palestinian journalists killed in the Israeli offensive since Oct. 7 to 174, the Hamas-run Gaza government media office said.

In another strike, a Palestinian was killed and several were wounded in Rafah, near the border with Egypt, while in the northern town of Beit Hanoun an airstrike killed one man and injured others, medics said.

While later on Monday, an Israeli air strike on a house in Nuseirat, one of Gaza Strip's eight historic refugee camps, killed six people, health officials said.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Monday that at least 41,615 people have been killed in the war, now in its 12th month.

According to the ministry, 96,359 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began on October 7.

Some residents said fighting and Israeli military activities in Gaza have declined slightly in the past week as Israel has escalated its military offensive against Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.

While the intensity of the ground offensive has been lower, Israel has kept up its airstrikes in the enclave, they added.

In the southern Gaza Strip, Israeli authorities released 12 Palestinians, including Khaled Al-Ser, head of the surgery unit at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, medics and Hamas media said. Palestinians freed by Israel have complained of torture and ill-treatment in Israeli jails, charges Israel denies.