By Abdul Adil

Gaza City, (AA, Wafa, Al Jazeera): At least 47 more Palestinians were killed and 61 others injured over the last 24 hours, as Israel continues its onslaught on the besieged Gaza Strip, the territory’s Health Ministry said on Tuesday. “The Israeli occupation (forces) committed five massacres against families in the Gaza Strip, leaving 47 martyrs and 61 injured during the past 24 hours,” a ministry statement said. This has increased the number of Palestinians killed to at least 34,535 and 77,704 wounded in Israeli indiscriminate bombings on Gaza since October 7.

The Palestinian Civil Defense service on Tuesday said more than 10,000 people are still missing under the rubble across the Gaza Strip since the start of the Israeli onslaught against Gaza on Oct. 7.

“We estimate that there are over 10,000 missing people under the rubble of hundreds of destroyed homes since the start of the (Israeli) aggression,” a statement by the Civil Defense said.

It noted that those missing people are not included in the Health Ministry death toll list, “therefore, the number of martyrs exceeds 44,000.”

Meanwhile, crews have recovered nine bodies from under the rubble in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, Wafa reported.

Teams have been working to recover the bodies of slain Palestinians since Israeli forces withdrew from the area nearly one month ago

At least two children have been killed in an air attack on Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, where more than 1.5 million displaced Palestinians are sheltering.

The attack hit a home in the Shaboura neighbourhood and killed two siblings identified as Kareem Amer Jaradeh and his sister Mona, the Wafa news agency reported.

It said several others were wounded in the attack. Those injured as well as the bodies of the two siblings have been taken to the Kuwaiti Hospital in the densely populated city, it added.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has shared video of its crews transporting the bodies of three Palestinians, one of them a child, who were killed today as the Israeli army continued its attacks on central Gaza.

It said that the deaths resulted from an attack on a residential apartment.

Two children were killed and others were injured late Tuesday night in Israeli airstrikes targeting a house in the Shaboura refugee camp in Rafah in central Rafah city in the southern Gaza Strip.

In the last few hours, the Israeli warplanes launched a series of raids on areas east and north of Rafah.

According to medical sources, three civilians, including a child, were killed and others were injured in an Israeli bombardment of an apartment in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Strip. The Israeli fighter aircraft also bombed a house in Deir al Balah city, in central Gaza.

The Israeli aerial forces also shelled residential blocks in the al-Mughraqa area of central Gaza.

Sources said that rescue teams recovered nine bodies from the Khan Yunis camp in the southern Strip, noting that search, rescue and recovery operations are still ongoing in the camp.

Three civilians were also wounded in an Israeli artillery shelling of Mansoura Street in the al-Shuja’iyya neighborhood to the east of Gaza City.

Israeli warplanes also launched air raids targeting the Zeitoun neighborhood in Gaza City and the town of Beit Lahia in the northern Strip.

Seven Palestinians were killed and at least 32 others were injured Tuesday in Israeli bombardment on the blockaded Gaza Strip, according to WAFA correspondent.

He said that Israeli warplanes launched a series of airstrikes against the northern and western parts of Nuseirat refugee camp, killing four Palestinians and injuring 15 others.

He added that Israeli warplanes launched three airstrikes on the Gaza city neighborhood of Zaitoun, killing three and injuring 10 others.

The fighter jets also targeted the Jabalya town and refugee camp in the northern Strip, injuring seven, including three children.

Meanwhile, Israeli occupation artillery shelled the al-Bureij and al-Maghazi refugee camps in the central Strip, the neighborhoods of Tal al-Hawa, Sheikh Ijlin and az-Zaytoun in the city of Gaza, as well as vicinity of Sheikh Zayed towers in Beit Lahia.

In the southern Strip, the artillery targeted civilian houses in the eastern area of the city of Khan Younes.

This came as search and rescue teams recovered six decomposed bodies from al-Amal neighborhood, west of Khan Younes, as search operations are still underway to recover other bodies from under the rubble.

The search and rescue teams managed to recover 24 bodies, including those of a child and women, up this morning following Israeli airstrikes on houses across the city of Rafah in the southern Strip

Mass graves were also discovered in the vicinity of Nasser Hospital, where more than 390 bodies have been exhumed so far, including of children and

patients who were receiving treatment at the medical facility that is now largely in ruins.

Meanwhile, Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called Tuesday for the “utter destruction” of the cities of Rafah, Deir al-Balah, and Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip.

“We read: I pursue my enemies and overtake them, I do not turn back until they are wiped out,” Smotrich, the leader of the Religious Zionism Party, said in a circulated video on social media, using phrases from the Torah.

“No half jobs; Rafah, Deir al-Balah, and Khan Younis – utter destruction,” he added.

His call comes amid reports of a possible cease-fire deal between Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip, where more than 34,500 Palestinians have been killed and thousands injured in a brutal Israeli offensive since last October.

“It’s absurd, we are negotiating with the ones that should not have existed for a long time,” Smotrich said.

The far-right minister also called for striking the Hezbollah group in Lebanon.

“Then, with the will of God, to eliminate the evils of Hezbollah in the north, with the will of God, and to deliver a real message that whoever perpetrates against the Jewish people, like these evil ones have perpetrated against us, will be destroyed, they will be annihilated, and it will echo for decades and decades onwards,” he said.

He called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to bow to pressure to end the Gaza war.

Another Palestinian journalist was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, taking the death toll to 142 since Oct. 7, 2023, according to his employer.

Salem Abu Toyor, a reporter for Al-Quds Today television station, and his son lost their lives when fighter jets struck their home in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, the TV station said.

The pair were buried in the central city of Deir al-Balah, according to an Anadolu reporter.

According to the Israeli government, 1,139 Israelis were killed by Hamas on October 7 in southern Israel, and 134 Israelis and foreign nationals are still detained by Hamas in Gaza.

[Photo:  Civil defense teams & local people carry out search and rescue operations after Israeli army attacked the house belonging to the El Azayza family which were heavily damaged besides its surrounding, in Deir al-Balah, Gaza on 30 04 2024. Photojournalist: Ashraf Amra /AA]