The Jabalia refugee camp in the north of Gaza was among the sites reported hit from the air. According to Reuters, a Gazan health ministry spokesperson said several people were killed by an Israeli air strike.

Footage obtained by Reuters showed a boy covered in grey dust, sitting weeping amid crumbled cement and rubble from collapsed buildings.“My father was martyred,” he cried in a hoarse voice. A girl in a pink sweatshirt, also coated with dust, stood between piles of rubble.

Bombardments from warplanes and artillery were also concentrated on Khan Younis and Rafah, another city in Gaza’s south, residents said, and hospitals were struggling to cope with the flow of wounded.

Israel’s government spokesperson, Eylon Levy, said the military had struck more than 400 targets over the weekend “including extensive aerial attacks in the Khan Younis area” and had also killed Hamas fighters and destroyed their infrastructure in Beit Lahiya in the north.

There was no immediate comment on the reports of specific attacks.