News on the war between Israel and Hamas: Israeli air strikes on Palestinian territories kill dozens more people

More than two dozen Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks on Palestinian territory on Wednesday, local authorities said. They said an Israeli airstrike killed five Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and at least 20 people were killed in the Gaza Strip, including 16 women and children.

According to Gaza's Health Ministry, at least 19 people were killed in the attack on a tent camp in an Israeli-designated humanitarian zone on Tuesday.

The Health Ministry says that more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the war between Israel and Hamas began. The count does not distinguish between fighters and civilians. The war has caused enormous destruction and around 90 percent of Gaza's 2.3 million inhabitants have had to flee their homes, often several times.

In their October 7 attack that sparked the war, Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Another 250 were abducted and around 100 are still being held. Around a third of them are believed to be dead.

Here is the latest information:

RAMALLAH, West Bank – An Israeli airstrike has killed five Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian officials said.

The Israeli military said it attacked a group of militants in the northern Israeli town of Tubas early Wednesday morning.

The Palestinian Health Ministry in the West Bank confirmed the death toll but did not say whether those killed by Israeli fire were militants or civilians.

Israel has stepped up its military attacks on the area in recent weeks and says it is working to break up militant groups and prevent attacks. Palestinians say such operations are aimed at cementing Israel's seemingly unlimited military rule over the area.

Israel conquered the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East War. The Palestinians want all three areas for their future state. Since the Hamas attack from Gaza on October 7 sparked the war there, there has been an escalation of violence in the West Bank.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip – Palestinian officials say Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip have killed at least 20 people, including 16 women and children.

An airstrike early Wednesday killed 11 people, including six siblings aged between 21 months and 21 years, according to the European Hospital, which admitted the injured. Among those killed in the attack near the southern city of Khan Younis were three other women, a child and a man, according to the hospital.

An attack late Tuesday on a house in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza killed nine people, including six women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry and Civil Defense rescue workers. The Civil Defense says the house belonged to Akram al-Najjar, a professor at Al-Quds Open University who survived the attack.

Israel claims it is targeting militant terrorists exclusively and claims 17,000 dead among them, but provides no evidence. It blames Hamas for civilian casualties because its fighters live in densely populated residential areas. The military rarely comments on individual strikes, which often kill women and children.

The Health Ministry says Israel's offensive, launched in response to the October 7 Hamas attack, has killed at least 41,020 Palestinians and wounded nearly 95,000 in Gaza. It makes no distinction between fighters and civilians, but says more than half of those killed were women and children.

On October 7, Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted about 250. About 100 hostages are still being held in Gaza, about a third of whom are believed to be dead.