At least 14 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a tent sheltering displaced people in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday, according to Palestinian security and medical sources.
Medical sources told Xinhua that the casualties included women and children, and that all the wounded were taken to hospital.
In a statement, the Israeli army said its forces had continued operations across the Strip over the past 24 hours, targeting “terrorists, military buildings, observation and sniper positions that posed a threat to the forces, underground infrastructure, and other terrorist structures.”
In a separate statement, the army said its forces operating in the Khan Younis area, acting on intelligence about the presence of underground Hamas infrastructure, had “uncovered and destroyed an underground tunnel approximately one kilometre long.”
“The tunnel’s route was used to carry out terrorist attacks, and the terrorists blatantly exploited the civilian infrastructure in the area,” the statement said.
Since Israel resumed its intensified military campaign on March 18, at least 4,058 Palestinians have been killed and 11,729 injured, bringing the overall death toll in Gaza since the war began in October 2023 to 54,321, with a total of 123,770 people injured, according to health authorities in Gaza on Friday.
