Several Dead, Including Children, In Israeli Attacks In Gaza

Several Palestinians, including children, were killed and others injured in Israeli airstrikes on Wednesday in the Gaza Strip, according to witnesses.

An Israeli fighter jet struck a house west of Gaza City, leaving seven people dead, including four children, witnesses said.

Six children remain trapped under the rubble of the destroyed house, they said.

Several people were also reported killed and injured in artillery shelling in Shujaiya neighborhood east of Gaza City, eyewitnesses said.

A woman was killed and several people were injured in Israeli shelling of refugee tents in Rafah, in the southern tip of the Gaza Strip, medical sources said.

Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 cross-border attack by Hamas which killed nearly 1,200 people.

Nearly 32,500 Palestinians have since been killed and 74,900 others injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.

On Monday, the UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire in Gaza during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. While Hamas welcomed the resolution, Israel rejected the cease-fire call and vowed to continue its war on the Palestinian enclave.

The Israeli war, now in its 173rd day, has pushed 85% of Gaza's population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the ICJ, which in January issued an interim ruling that ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

*Writing by Mohammad Sio in Istanbul -