Israel steps up bombing of central Gaza; 26 killed

Israeli military strikes killed at least 26 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, medics said, as forces stepped up their bombardment of central areas and tanks pushed deeper into the north and south of the enclave.

The escalation came a day after Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah began a ceasefire in Lebanon, halting more than a year of hostilities and raising hopes among many Palestinians in Gaza for a similar deal with resistance movement Hamas, which rules the enclave.

Announcing the Lebanon accord on Tuesday, US President Joe Biden said he would now renew his push for a ceasefire agreement in Gaza, urging Israel and Hamas to seize the moment.

Israel's campaign in Gaza has killed nearly 44,200 people and displaced nearly all the enclave's population at least once, Gaza officials say. Vast swathes of the territory are in ruins.

Thursday, the head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, said at least 70 % of those killed in Gaza were women and children.

He said the ongoing Israeli offensive in the northern edge of Gaza for the past seven weeks has uprooted 130,000 people.

Thursday six people were killed in two separate airstrikes on a house and near the hospital of Kamal Adwan in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, while four others were killed when an Israeli strike hit a motorcycle in Khan Younis in the south, medics said.

Later on Thursday, an Israeli air strike near a tent encampment housing displaced families in eastern Khan Younis killed at least five people and wounded others, medics said.

In Nuseirat, one of Gaza's eight historic refugee camps, Israeli planes carried out several airstrikes, destroying a multi-storey building and hitting roads outside mosques. At least 11 people were killed in those strikes, according to health officials at Al-Awda Hospital in the camp.

In Rafah, near the border with Egypt, tanks pushed deeper into the northwest area of the city, residents said.