Attacks kill at least 59 in Gaza as pressure grows for a ceasefire

Israeli strikes and gunfire killed at least 59 people across the Gaza Strip, health officials said Saturday, as international pressure grows for a ceasefire but Israel's leader remains defiant about continuing the war.

- BY WAFAA SHURAFA AND SAMY MAGDY

Among the dead were those hit by two strikes in the Nuseirat refugee camp nine from the same family in a house and, later, 15 in the same camp, including women and children, according to staff at Al-Awda Hospital, where the bodies were brought. Five others were killed when a strike hit a tent for the displaced, according to Nasser Hospital, which received the dead.

Israel's army said it was not aware of anyone being killed by gunfire Saturday in southern Gaza, and didn't provide immediate comment about the airstrikes.

The director of Shifa Hospital in Gaza City told the Associated Press that medical teams there were concerned about Israeli "tanks approaching the vicinity of the hospital," restricting access to the facility where 159 patients were being treated.

"The bombardment has not stopped for a single moment," Dr. Mohamed Abu Selmiya said.

He added that 14 premature babies were treated in incubators in Helou Hospital, though the head of neonatal intensive care there, Dr. Nasser Bulbul, has said that facility's main gate was closed because of drones flying over the building.

The attacks came hours after a defiant Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told fellow world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly on Friday that his nation "must finish the job" against Hamas in Gaza. Forty-eight hostages are still held captive there, around 20 of them believed by Israel to be alive.