Israeli forces killed 33 Palestinians across Gaza in the past 24 hours as they battled Hamas-led fighters, Palestinian officials said, but brief pauses in fighting allowed medics to conduct a third day of polio vaccinations for children.

Among those killed were four women in the southern city of Rafah and eight people near a hospital in Gaza City in the north, the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said. Others were killed in separate air strikes across the territory, it said.

The Israeli military said it killed eight Palestinian gunmen, including a senior Hamas commander who took part in the October 7 attacks in Israel, at a command centre near the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City.

A statement said Ahmed Fozi Nazer Muhammad Wadia had taken command of a “massacre of civilians carried out by Hamas terrorists” in Israel’s Netiv HaAsara community near the Gaza border. There was no response from Hamas.

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