Israeli forces have pounded areas in the central Gaza Strip, killing at least nine Palestinians, according to health officials, while Israeli tanks carried out a limited advance further into Rafah in the south, Reuters reports.

In one Israeli air strike around midnight on a house in Al-Zawyda in the central Gaza Strip, eight people were killed, health officials said. Another strike killed a man in Nuseirat, one of the enclave’s eight refugee camps, where 23 people were killed in an Israeli air strike on a school on Tuesday.

Israeli tanks also shelled the eastern areas of Al-Bureij and Al-Maghazi camps in the centre of the enclave while an air strike destroyed a mosque, residents said.

Meanwhile, in Rafah, tanks carried out a raid in the north of the city before retreating, a tactic Israeli forces have used in other areas before mounting deeper incursions.