Gaza rescuers say 18 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes: AFP

Gaza's civil defense agency reported Sunday that overnight Israeli strikes across the Palestinian territory killed at least 18 people, including four displaced individuals who had sought refuge in a tent.

Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that rescuers worked through the night, recovering the bodies of 18 people, while dozens more were injured in the "ongoing aggression and Israeli aerial and artillery bombardment" across Gaza.

Bassal reported that the dead included four people killed in an Israeli airstrike targeting a house in central Gaza City.

Another four were killed and eight injured when an Israeli missile struck a tent sheltering dozens of displaced people in Deir el-Balah city in central Gaza.

AFP photographs showed heart-wrenching scenes as relatives retrieved the bodies of their loved ones from a hospital in Gaza City, while others lay covered in blankets within the facility's ward.

On Saturday, Bassal said that Deir el-Balah's mayor, Diab al-Jaro, was killed in a similar strike.

The Israeli military later claimed responsibility for that strike, accusing Jaro of being "an operative in Hamas' military wing."

The war has displaced the vast majority of Gaza's 2.4 million population, with many forced to flee multiple times.

AFP