ISRAELI forces continued their killing spree in Gaza City on Saturday, killing at least nine Palestinians, including three children, hospital officials said.

A strike on an apartment in the Nasr neighbourhood killed at least five people, including the children between the ages of 8 and 18, said Mohammed Abu Selmiya, director of Al-Shifa Hospital where the bodies were taken.

Six other people were wounded, including four children between the ages of 8 and 16, he said.

Israel’s military said it targeted Hamas infrastructure and had located Hamas militants in the area, without elaborating.

Another Israeli strike hit a group of people in the Zeitoun neighbourhood, killing four and wounding another critically, health officials said.

The Israeli military said it targeted a “Hamas terrorist” and it was looking into the results of the strike.

Palestinians have reported an increase in the scale of the near daily Israeli strikes across the enclave over the past few days despite the so-called ceasefire that has been in place since last October.

At least 1,127 Palestinians, including at least 260 children, have been killed since the ceasefire, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Five Israeli soldiers have been killed in that time.

Some 1,200 people were killed during the course of the October 7 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel and 251 others were taken hostage.

The devastating retaliation unleashed by the Israelis has killed at least 73,250 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

The ministry is part of the Hamas-led government and is staffed by medical professionals who maintain detailed records viewed as generally reliable by United Nations agencies and independent experts.

Some estimates place the Palestinian death toll far higher with many people still unaccounted for but whose bodies are thought to be trapped under the mass of debris left by the Israeli attacks.