GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories, May  24, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Gaza's civil
defence agency said Israeli strikes killed at least 15 people on Saturday
across the Palestinian territory, where Israel has ramped up its military
offensive in recent days.

 Civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP the dead included a
couple who were killed with their two young children in a pre-dawn strike on a
house in the Amal quarter of the southern city of Khan Yunis.

  To the west of the city, at least five people were killed by a drone strike
on a crowd of people that had gathered to wait for aid trucks, he said.

 At Khan Yunis's Nasser Hospital, tearful mourners gathered around
white-shrouded bodies outside.

 "Suddenly, a missile from an F-16 destroyed the entire house, and all of
them were civilians -- my sister, her husband and their children," said Wissam
Al-Madhoun.

 "We found them lying in the street. What did this child do to (Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu?"

  The Israeli military said it was unable to comment on individual strikes
without their "precise geographical coordinates".

 In a statement, the military said that over the past day the air force had
struck more than 100 targets across the territory, including members of
"terrorist organisations in the Gaza Strip, military structures, underground
routes and additional terrorist infrastructure".

  Israel resumed operations in Gaza on March 18, ending a two-month ceasefire.

 Gaza's health ministry said Saturday that at least 3,747 people had been
killed in the territory since then, taking the war's overall toll to 53,901,
mostly civilians.

       
       - 'Cruellest phase' -
       
Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the war resulted in
the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based
on official figures.

 Militants also took 251 hostages, 57 of whom remain in Gaza including 34
the Israeli military says are dead.

 United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said on Friday that Palestinians were
enduring "the cruellest phase" of the war in Gaza, where a lengthy Israeli
blockade has led to widespread shortages of food and medicine.

 Limited aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip restarted on Monday for the first
time since March 2, amid mounting condemnation of the Israeli blockade.

 The World Food Programme said 15 of its trucks were looted late Thursday
night, calling on Israel "to get far greater volumes of food assistance into
Gaza faster".

 "Hunger, desperation, and anxiety over whether more food aid is coming, is
contributing to rising insecurity," it said.

 The Gaza City municipality, meanwhile, warned Saturday of "a potential
large-scale water crisis" due to a lack of supplies needed for urgent repairs.

 It said damage from the war had "affected the majority of Gaza's water
infrastructure, leaving large portions of the population vulnerable to severe
water shortages".

It added that temperatures were rising and demand was expected to increase.