In a fresh new offensive, Israeli airstrikes and gunfire have claimed the lives of 23 people, including children, in the war-battered territory of Gaza on Sunday, as per Gaza’s civil defence agency, reported AFP. Mahmud Bassal, the civil defence spokesman, told AFP that his services “transported 23 martyrs, including several children and women” who were killed in various locations around the besieged territory. The Israeli military told AFP it couldn’t comment on the reported incidents but said its ongoing campaign aims to “dismantle Hamas military capabilities” following the group’s October 2023 attack on Israel.Bassal informed that two children were killed in an air strike in their home, which was completely destroyed, in the Zeitun neighbourhood of Gaza City early on Sunday morning. A family member, Abdel Rahman Azzam, 45, told AFP that he had heard “huge explosions” coming from his relative’s house, when he ”rushed out in panic and saw the house destroyed and on fire,” he said.“We evacuated more than 20 injured people, including two martyrs, two children from the family. The screams of children and women were non-stop,” Azzam said. “They bombed the house with a missile without any prior warning. This is a horrific crime. We sleep without knowing if we will wake up.”A drone strike on a tent sheltering displaced people had killed five people, including a child near the southern city of Khan Yunis, said Bassal. Four more people lost their lives in an Israeli gunfire in Rafah, also located in the south. In the Northern town of Jabalia, Ahmed Arar, 60, said that his home was completely destroyed after they had recieved a warning from a person identifying himself as an Israeli army officer. “About half an hour later, they bombed the house, and it was completely destroyed,” he told AFP by telephone.Israeli offensive has claimed the lives of at least 56,500 Gazans, most of whom are civilians in the war-battered territory according to the area’s health ministry. Around 1,219 people, mostly civilians have also lost their lives in Israel. Israeli authorities have informed that they would refocus on its campaign against Gaza, that it launched in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023 attack, after the 12-day war with Iran that ended with a ceasefire on Tuesday.
