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AFP journalists, medics and witnesses reported strikes across the coastal territory, where the UN says humanitarian relief is blocked after Israeli troops defied international opposition and entered eastern Rafah this week.
That effectively shut a key aid crossing and suspending traffic through another.
At least 21 people were killed during strikes in central Gaza and taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah city, a hospital statement said.
Bodies covered in white dust lay on the ground in a courtyard of the facility. A man in a baseball cap leaned over one body bag, clasping a dust-covered hand that protruded.
The feet of another corpse poked from under a blanket bearing the picture of a large teddy bear.
In Rafah, witnesses reported intense air strikes near the crossing with Egypt, and AFP images showed smoke rising over the city.
Other strikes occurred in north Gaza, witnesses said.
Hamas on Saturday accused Israel of “expanding the incursion into Rafah to include new areas in the center and the west of the city.”
Israeli troops on Tuesday seized and closed the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing — through which all fuel passes into Gaza — after ordering residents of eastern Rafah to evacuate.
The army said Saturday troops were fighting “armed terrorists” at the crossing and had found “numerous underground tunnel shafts.”
The war began with Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
During their attack, militants also seized hostages. Israel estimates 128 of them remain in Gaza including 36 who the military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,971 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
While mediation efforts towards a truce and hostage release appeared to stall, Hamas’ armed wing said a hostage who appeared in a video it released earlier on Saturday had died from wounds suffered in an Israeli strike.
