Israeli airstrikes in northern and central Gaza killed at least 17 Palestinians on Wednesday, according to Palestinian officials and local media reports.
One of the strikes hit a house in the Jabaliya area of northern Gaza, while another hit the Bureij refugee camp in the center of the Gaza Strip.
Israel’s military did not immediately comment on the attacks, but earlier Wednesday, it warned people to evacuate the Bureij area, saying militants located there were firing rockets.
The Israeli military said it killed Abd al-Hadi Sabah, a Hamas militant who helped lead the infiltration into Kibbutz Nir Oz during the October 7, 2023, attack by the militant group on southern Israel.
Israel warned Wednesday that it will intensify its strikes in Gaza if Hamas continues its rocket fire.
“I want to send a clear message from here to the heads of the terrorists in Gaza: If Hamas does not soon allow the release of the Israeli hostages from Gaza ... and continues firing at Israeli communities, it will face blows of an intensity not seen in Gaza for a long time,” Defense Minister Israel Katz said.
Israel has repeatedly told people to move from parts of Gaza in what the military says are evacuations necessary for safely carrying out its war against Hamas militants.
The United Nations and humanitarian organizations have criticized the Israeli tactic, saying that the evacuation orders often give people little time to leave, and that they do not have safe places to go in Gaza to escape the airstrikes and Israeli ground operations.
More than 1,500 tents sheltering displaced people across Gaza were flooded by heavy rains over the past two days, leaving people exposed to the cold, the Palestinian civil defense said.
The war in Gaza began with Hamas militants attacking southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 people hostage. About 100 hostages are being held in Gaza, with at least one-third of them believed to be dead.
Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza has killed at least 45,500 Palestinians and injured more than 108,000, according to the Health Ministry in the enclave. The ministry does not differentiate between militants and civilians in its count.
The war has leveled wide areas of Gaza and displaced 90% of its 2.3 million people.
The United States, United Kingdom, European Union and others have designated Hamas as a terror organization.
Some information for this report was provided by from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
