“The occupation launched violent air strikes on Gaza City and the towns of Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun, and Khan Younis, killing seven civilians,” civil defence spokesman Mahmoud Bassal told AFP.

Four people were killed in the Al-Rimal area near Gaza City, two in Al-Sabra west of Gaza City and one in Khan Younis.

“The occupation also destroyed more than 10 homes east of Gaza City and in Rafah,” he added.

The Israeli military, which did not immediately comment, has intensified its aerial bombardments and expanded its ground operations in the Gaza Strip since it resumed its offensive in the besieged Palestinian territory on March 18.

Gaza’s civil defence agency yesterday accused the Israeli military of carrying out “summary executions” in the killing of 15 rescue workers last month, rejecting the findings of an internal probe by the army.

At least 1,691 people have been killed in Gaza since the military resumed its offensive, bringing the total death toll since the war erupted to at least 51,065, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

Hamas’s attack on Israel that ignited the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.