AGENCIES

An Israeli airstrike killed at least 29 Palestinians, including children, in a house in Shejaia in Gaza City, local health authorities said yesterday.

Medics said dozens of others were wounded in the attack that hit a multi-floor residential building in the eastern suburb of Gaza City.

Many were still believed to be missing and trapped under the ruins of the building. The strike damaged several other houses nearby, medics said.

The Israeli military said in a statement it struck a senior Hamas militant responsible for planning and executing attacks from Shejaia in northern Gaza, whom it did not identify. The military said several steps were taken before the attack to mitigate harm to civilians.

Local health authorities said nine other Palestinians were killed in separate Israeli military strikes in other parts of the enclave, raising yesterday’s death toll to 38.

Israel resumed its bombardment of Gaza on March 18 after a two-month truce and sent troops back into the enclave. In the three weeks since, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says Israeli military strikes have killed nearly 1,500 Palestinians.

Since late March Israel has ordered Gazans out of territory around the edges of the enclave to create what it describes as a security zone; residents fear the aim is to permanently depopulate swathes of territory.

On Tuesday, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that Gaza had become “a killing field” because Israel has continued to block aid, an accusation an Israeli official quickly denied, saying there was “no shortage” of aid.

“More than an entire month has passed without a drop of aid into Gaza. No food. No fuel. No medicine. No commercial supplies. As aid has dried up, the floodgates of horror have re-opened,” Guterres said in remarks to journalists.