Israeli strikes kill dozens in Gaza, officials say

The dead in the attacks include 19 women and children, authorities report.

- Samy Magdy

OHAD ZWIGENBERG Associated Press SMOKE rises after an explosion in the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel.

Israeli strikes in Gaza City and at a refugee camp killed more than 40 people, including 19 women and children, health officials said Sunday, as several European countries and leading U.S. allies moved to recognize a Palestinian state.

Health officials at Shifa Hospital, where most of the bodies were brought, said the dead included 14 people killed in a strike late Saturday that hit a residential block on the southern side of the city. Health staff said a nurse who worked at the hospital was among the dead, along with his wife and three children.

Another strike that targeted a group of people in front of a clinic in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza killed at least eight Palestinians, according to the Al-Awda Hospital. The dead included four children and two women, the hospital said, and 22 people were wounded.

Israel did not comment onthe strikes.

A deadly drone attack in Lebanon

In Lebanon, the Health Ministry said Sunday that an Israeli drone strike in the southern city of Bint Jbeil killed five people, among them three children, and two others were wounded. No further details were given.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the incident.

Since the months-long war between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah ended in a U.S.-brokered ceasefire in November, Israel has struck southern Lebanon almost daily in what it says are attacks to target Hezbollah.

The Lebanese government has said that these strikes violate the ceasefire and hamper their efforts to gradually disarm the group.

Tens of thousands protest war in Gaza