Intensified Israeli airstrikes have killed more than 20 people, including women and children, in the Gaza Strip, the besieged territory’s civil defense agency says. 

A pre-dawn airstrike targeting the family home of photojournalist Fatima Hassouneh in the Al-Tuffa neighborhood of Gaza City on Wednesday killed 10 people.  

“Our teams transferred 10 martyrs and several wounded to al-Shifa hospital after the Hassouneh family’s home was targeted,” civil defense agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said. 

According to the Palestinian Ma’an news agency, Israeli strikes in the early hours of Wednesday “mostly focused on Gaza City” and left at least 21 people dead and dozens of others injured.

Two people were killed in an Israeli aerial raid targeting a residential apartment near the Saraya Junction in the center of Gaza City, while another death was recorded as a result of shelling from an Israeli reconnaissance aircraft near Abu Hasira Street, west of the city.

Three members of a family lost their lives due to the shelling of a tent sheltering displaced Palestinians in Yarmouk Stadium in the center of the city.

In Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, a girl was killed and two people were injured by shelling that targeted a house, where a tent was erected on the roof, according to Ma’an.

Israel’s airstrikes on the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza also claimed four Palestinian lives earlier Wednesday morning.

Palestinian media reported that Israeli attack helicopters were firing on Rafah city in the southern Gaza Strip, and the town of Abasan al-Kabira was also coming under heavy Israeli artillery attack in nearby Khan Yunis.

Artillery attacks were also reported on the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, as well as the Bureij camp.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said the latest fatalities raised the death toll from Israel’s genocidal war since October 7, 2023, to at least 51,000.

The ministry said in a statement that 69 more injured people had been transferred to hospitals over the past 24 hours, taking the number of injuries to 116,343 in the Israeli onslaught.

“Many victims are still trapped under the rubble and on the roads as rescuers are unable to reach them,” the statement said.

Israel resumed its aerial and ground aggression across Gaza from March 18, ending a two-month ceasefire that had largely halted hostilities in the territory.

Since then, at least 1,630 people have been killed in Gaza and more than 4,300 others injured.

Minister of military affairs Israel Katz said Wednesday Israel would continue to “relentlessly strike” Gaza if Hamas continues to refuse to release captives.

“Operations will intensify and move to the next stage,” Katz said in a statement, without specifying what the next stage would entail.  

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former minister of military affairs Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.