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26 April 2024

Gaza death toll at 314

Palestinians carry the bodies of some of the eight members of the same family who were killed overnight in an Israeli strike during their funeral on July 19, 2014 in Beit Lahia, north of the Gaza strip. The new deaths raised the toll on the 12th day of violence in Gaza to 316 Palestinians, according to emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra. (AFP)

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By Agencies

Five bodies were pulled from a home hit by an Israeli air strike on southern Gaza on Saturday, raising the toll in 12 days of violence to 314, medics said.

The bodies were retrieved from Khan Yunis, where a sixth body was also found, and a seventh person died of wounds sustained on Friday, emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said.

The discoveries came after the deaths of seven people outside a mosque in the southern city of Khan Yunis, Qudra said, adding that three of the dead were from the same family.

One woman was among those killed, Qudra said.

Three more people were killed shortly afterwards, in three separate strikes in Beit Hanun in the north, Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, and another in Khan Yunis.

In Khan Yunis, a later strike on a home killed Raed al-Laqan, 28.

The deaths took to 314 the toll from an Israeli operation to stamp out rocket fire from Gaza, many of them women and children.

Some 2,270 Palestinians have been wounded, Qudra said.

Operation Protective Edge is the bloodiest conflict in the besieged coastal enclave since 2009.

Israel launched a ground offensive lateThursday, starting a new phase in the operation which it said aimed partly to destroy tunnels used by the territory's dominant power, Hamas.