Israeli army kills 44 Palestinians across Gaza: sources

GAZA, June 19 (Xinhua) -- At least 44 Palestinians were killed on Thursday in Israeli airstrikes and gunfire across the Gaza Strip, including 22 people who had gathered to receive aid outside two U.S.-backed distribution centers, Palestinian officials and medical sources said.

Eyewitnesses said Israeli forces opened heavy fire on crowds waiting for food near a distribution site at the Netzarim junction in central Gaza. Al-Awda Hospital, located in the Nuseirat refugee camp nearby, reported receiving the bodies of 16 people killed at the site, along with more than 100 wounded.

In a separate incident, at least six people were killed and dozens injured in an Israeli strike targeting people gathered near another U.S.-supported aid distribution point west of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, according to Palestinian medical officials.

Elsewhere in Gaza City, 22 people, including women and children, were killed in a series of Israeli strikes that hit a tent sheltering displaced families in the al-Shati refugee camp, a residential home in the Zeitoun neighborhood, and a Palestinian gathering in the Jalaa district, said Mahmoud Basal, spokesman for Gaza's Civil Defense Authority.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the reports.

Israel resumed large-scale military operations in Gaza on March 18. Since then, at least 5,401 Palestinians have been killed and 18,060 wounded, according to Gaza's health authorities. The latest figures bring the total death toll in the enclave to 55,706, with 130,101 injured since hostilities erupted in October 2023. ■