Israeli military strikes in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis killed at least 38 people since Thursday night and Israeli forces launched a night-time raid on a hospital in the north, Palestinian officials said.

The Gaza health ministry said many of the casualties from the Israeli strikeson houses in southeast Khan Younis were women and children.

The Israeli military said in a statement forces killed a number of Palestinian gunmen in air and ground strikes in the southern Gaza Strip and dismantled military infrastructure.

Some residents returned to the scene on Friday morning, sifting through rubble in an attempt to retrieve some of their clothes and documents, while children looked for their toys.

At the nearby Nasser Hospital, medics prepared the dead, among them three children wrapped in the same white shroud.

Read the full Reuters story here.