GAZA – At least 53 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes on the northern and southern Gaza Strip from Thursday night through Friday, Palestinian sources said.
In northern Gaza, an Israeli drone targeted on Friday a gathering of Palestinians in the Al-Mashtal area, north of the Al-Shati camp, local sources and eyewitnesses told Xinhua.
Paramedics reported that medical teams and the Civil Defense service recovered the bodies of 11 people and found several injuries that were later transported to the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City. Additionally, two Palestinians were killed and five others wounded in an Israeli strike on the port west of Gaza City, and another two Palestinians, including a girl, were killed in a third Israeli airstrike that targeted them in Senaa Street in the west of the city, said a statement from the city’s Civil Defense service.
Meanwhile, in southern Gaza, at least 38 Palestinians were killed and dozens of others injured, mostly children and women, in Israeli attacks on houses in the southeast of Khan Younis from Thursday night to Friday morning, Gaza-based health authorities said in a press statement. Local sources and eyewitnesses told Xinhua that Israeli aircraft and artillery heavily bombed the neighborhoods of Al-Manara, Ma’en, Sheikh Nasser, and the outskirts of Qizan Al-Najjar, south and east of Khan Younis, forcing dozens of families to flee toward the western part of the city.
They said the Israeli attacks targeted several residential homes and a mosque in those areas, accompanied by a limited ground incursion. The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement on Friday that it killed in southern Gaza a number of militants from the air and ground and dismantled numerous militant infrastructure sites over the past day. (Xinhua)…[+]

Photo: People forced to leave the town of Beit Lahia by Israeli army are seen in Jabalia refugee camp, northern Gaza Strip. (Xinhua)