GAZA CITY, Palestine

Several Palestinians were killed in a series of Israeli airstrikes on Palestinian homes and a shelter in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, according to witnesses and medical sources.

Fighter jets hit a number of houses in western Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip and set ablaze several buildings in the Brazil neighborhood, south of the city, witnesses said.

Medical sources reported that several deceased individuals were brought to the Gaza European Hospital near Khan Younis in southern Gaza following the attacks.

Fatalities were also reported when Israeli jets struck a school sheltering hundreds of displaced Palestinians in Khan Younis, local sources said.

Israeli planes bombed five homes in Sabra and Shejaiya neighborhoods in northern Gaza, the Civil Defense Agency said.

The Palestinian Health Ministry has yet to issue an exact death toll from the Israeli attacks.

Israel, flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas.

More than 37,700 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, most of them women and children, and nearly 86,400 others injured, according to local health authorities.

More than eight months into the Israeli onslaught, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

​​​​​​​Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered it to immediately halt its operation in the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar in Ankara