Massive overnight attacks on Gaza raise death toll to over 44,000

At least 88 people have been killed in Israeli air strikes on Wednesday night, which continued into Thursday morning.

66 people were killed in Beit Lahiya in the north of the Gaza strip, and another 22 in Gaza City.

The death toll in the strip from the 13-month-long war between Israel and Hamas has now surpassed 44,000, local health officials said Thursday.

The Gaza Health Ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count, but has said that more than half of the fatalities are women and children. The Israeli military says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

The Health Ministry said 44,056 people have been killed and 104,268 wounded since the start of the war. It has said the real toll is higher because thousands of bodies are buried under rubble or in areas that medics cannot access.

Three militants killed in raid on West Bank

Mourners held a funeral on Thursday for three Palestinians killed during an Israeli raid in the West Bank city of Jenin. Israeli forces said they had killed at least three militants during a raid Tuesday in the occupied territory. The militant Hamas group later identified the three as its fighters.

They were killed in the area of Jenin, in the north of the occupied territory, which has been a flashpoint for Israeli-Palestinian violence in recent years even before the latest Israel-Hamas war began in Gaza.

The Israeli military said they had been shot at first, drawing return fire that killed a wanted suspect and two others. It also said it found rifles and military equipment at the site and destroyed two facilities used to manufacture explosives as well as dismantled explosives that were buried under roads.

After two days of operations in Jenin, the Israeli army withdrew from the area in the West Bank, where at least five Palestinians, including the Hamas militants, were killed.

Israeli man killed by shrapnel following rocket attack

Israeli rescue service Magen David Adom said that a man was killed by shrapnel following a rocket strike from Lebanon in the northern Israeli town of Nahariya on Thursday.

They said that they “arrived at an open space near a playground” and saw a male aged in his 30s lying unconscious with shrapnel wounds.

Following a medical assessment, he was “found with no signs of life, and we pronounced him deceased,” Magen David Adom said.

The Israeli military also said that “10 projectiles were identified crossing from Lebanon” during that barrage.”