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GAZA CITY: Gaza’s civil defense agency on Wednesday said that 20 people, including at least six children, were killed in two Israeli air strikes overnight in the Palestinian territory.
Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP the first hit a tent housing displaced people in Khan Yunis in the south shortly after midnight local time (2100 GMT Tuesday) and the second struck a camp in the north soon afterwards.
The Israeli military said it was looking into the report when contacted by AFP.
The bombings came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met US President Donald Trump in Washington and discussed the ongoing campaign to defeat Hamas in Gaza.
Afterwards, he restated Israel’s aims to secure the release of all hostages taken during the Palestinian militants’ October 7, 2023 attack, and “the elimination” of its “military and governing capabilities.”
Gaza’s civil defense agency said 29 people were killed in Israeli strikes across Gaza on Tuesday, with victims also including people displaced by 21 months of conflict.
Bassal said the first strike on Wednesday killed 10 members of the same family sheltering in the Al-Mawasi area of Khan Yunis while the second, on the Al-Shati camp near Gaza City, also left more than 30 wounded.
The victims were from two families, he added.
“The explosion was massive, like an earthquake,” said Zuhair Judeh, 40, who saw the Al-Shati air strike.
“It destroyed the house and several nearby homes. The bodies and remains of the martyrs were scattered,” he added, calling it “a horrific massacre.”
Several people remained missing, presumed trapped under the rubble, he said.
Abeer Al-Sharbasi, 36, described the air strike as “terrifying” and said it happened as she and her family were asleep in a nearby tent.
“You can’t predict when or why they’ll bomb you. We have nothing left but to surrender ourselves to God.”
Due to restrictions imposed on media in the Gaza Strip and difficulties accessing the area, AFP is unable to independently verify the death tolls and details shared by the parties involved.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Of 251 hostages seized during attack, 49 are still held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 57,575 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN considers the figures reliable.

Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), appeared in a rare online video on Wednesday to say the group’s armed struggle against Turkiye has ended, and he called for a full shift to democratic politics.

In the recording, dated June and released by Firat News Agency, which is close to the PKK, Ocalan urged Turkiye’s parliament to set up a commission to oversee disarmament and manage a broader peace process.

The PKK, which has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state for 40 years and is labelled a terrorist organization by Turkiye, the United States and the EU, decided in May to disband after an initial written appeal from Ocalan in February.

“The phase of armed struggle has ended. This is not a loss, but a historic gain,” he said in the video, the first time since he was jailed in 1999 that either footage of him or a recording of his voice has been released.

“The armed struggle stage must now be voluntarily replaced by a phase of democratic politics and law.”

Ocalan, seated in a beige polo shirt with a glass of water on the table in front of him, appeared to read from a transcript in the seven-minute video. He was surrounded by six other jailed PKK members all looking straight at the camera.

He said the PKK had ended its separatist agenda.

“The main objective has been achieved – existence has been acknowledged,” he said. “What remains would be excessive repetition and a dead end.”

Ocalan added that Turkiye’s pro-Kurdish DEM Party, the third largest in parliament in Ankara, should work alongside other political parties.