44 die in Israeli strikes on Saturday as Gaza mourns children killed

A Gaza family sat weeping on Saturday over children killed by an Israeli strike as they were getting ready to play soccer, amid an intensified bombardment that Palestinian health authorities said has killed 44 people over the past 24 hours.

The strike was in Mawasi, a southern coastal area where hundreds of thousands of people have sought shelter after Israel's military told them to leave other areas it was bombing in its war against Hamas.

"The rocket struck them. There were no wanted or targeted people there and there was nobody else in the street. Just the children who were killed yesterday," said Mohammed Zanoun, a relative of the dead children. Palestinian health authorities say Israel's military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 43,500 people, with another 10,000 believed to be dead and uncounted under the rubble.

An air strike hit tents housing displaced Palestinians in the southern area of Khan Yunis, killing at least nine people, including children and women, civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.

The Palestinian Red Crescent also confirmed the toll, saying 11 others were wounded in the strike and were taken to Nasser Hospital.

A second air strike killed five people, including children, and injured about 22 when "Israeli warplanes hit Fahad Al-Sabah school", which had been turned into a shelter for "thousands of displaced people" in the Al-Tuffah district of Gaza City, Bassal said.

The dead and injured were taken to Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, he added.

In recent months, the military has struck several schools-turned-shelters.

UNICEF said Friday that "at least 64 attacks against schools -- almost two every day -- were registered in the Gaza Strip last month".

It said Gaza schools "largely serve as shelters for displaced children and families", adding that since the start of the war "more than 95 percent of schools in Gaza have been partially or completely destroyed".

At least 43,552 Palestinians have been killed, with 102,765 others injured, since Israel's military offensive on Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, Gaza's health ministry said on Saturday.

An Israeli strike on Tyre in southern Lebanon killed at least seven people on Saturday, Lebanese health authorities said. The UN Human Rights Office said on Friday that nearly 70% of fatalities it had verified in Gaza were women and children.

Strikes overnight and on Saturday morning also killed four Palestinians east of Gaza City including two journalists, four people in a house in Beit Lahiya, and two people in a tent at al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah, medics said.

Israel's military did not immediately respond on Saturday to a request for comment on strikes on areas where displaced people were sheltering.

It has previously said Hamas fighters hide among the civilian population and it hits them when it sees them. Hamas denies hiding among civilians. For the past month, Israel's main military focus has been in northern Gaza, the first part of the tiny, crowded territory that its troops overran early in the conflict last year. A committee of global food security experts warned on Friday that there was a strong likelihood of imminent famine in northern Gaza amid the renewed fighting.