TEHRAN – Dozens have been killed and injured, including women and children, amid relentless Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip. 

The Civil Defense in Gaza has reported fatalities and injuries resulting from Israeli attacks on multiple locations across the densely populated coastal enclave.

In the early hours of Monday, 19 Palestinians, including women and children, were killed in intense Israeli airstrikes on residential neighborhoods in northern Gaza, part of an ongoing months-long escalation.

Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson for the Civil Defense, also reported that rescue teams recovered 15 bodies and 10 injured individuals from the rubble of three apartments in a multi-story residential building northwest of Gaza City. 

The building was directly struck by three missiles while residents were asleep, and no prior warning was issued.

Basal also confirmed that four people were killed and another four wounded in a strike on a family home in Beit Lahia. 

He noted that the house had been sheltering dozens of displaced individuals, with several still missing beneath the debris.

Additional reports from Gaza indicate that the death toll from a previous Israeli strike on a house in the Sultan neighborhood, west of Beit Lahia in northern Gaza, has risen to six.

Journalists on the ground have confirmed fatalities after an Israeli bomb was dropped on an area southwest of Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

Overnight, various parts of Gaza were subjected to a wave of intense Israeli airstrikes. Homes were destroyed in Rafah, southern Gaza, as well as a neighborhood northeast of Gaza City, using high-powered explosives.

Amid a suffocating Israeli siege, Hamas reaffirmed its rejection of using humanitarian aid as a means of political coercion, aligning itself with the UN’s stance against arrangements that compromise humanitarian standards.

The regime has said it may allow some aid to enter Gaza at the end of the month under Israeli military supervision in a bid to pressure Hamas. 

In a statement, the Palestinian resistance movement urged the international community not to be misled by what it called the occupation regime’s false narratives and called for immediate action to fully lift the siege.

“The continued blockade of aid and obstruction of the humanitarian distribution system clearly reveals the occupation’s intentional creation of famine in Gaza,” the statement said.

The occupation regime’s army is blocking international organizations from accessing fuel storage facilities designated for hospitals, citing their location within so-called “red zones”.

Gaza’s Health Ministry warned that this policy “threatens the shutdown of vital medical facilities,” stating that remaining fuel reserves are only sufficient for three more days.

The Government Media Office in Gaza also criticized Israeli actions, denouncing attempts to use aid as “a tool for political blackmail.”

In a statement, the office said, “We firmly reject the Israeli plan to impose a new aid distribution mechanism controlled by the occupation army, which would transform humanitarian relief into a political weapon.”

The statement emphasized that the mechanism being forced on the Gaza Strip reinforces the siege and starvation policy.

“We stress the need for aid distribution through neutral international organizations and value all principled positions that have opposed this malicious plan,” the office added.

Human rights groups have strongly condemned the international silence and lack of action regarding Israeli restrictions on aid, calling it part of a U.S.-backed Israeli campaign aimed at the extermination of the Palestinian people.