An 18-month-old boy and his 10-year-old sister were among 25 people killed in a series of Israeli attacks in central Gaza, hospital officials said.

Sixteen people were initially reported killed in two strikes at the central Nuseirat refugee camp on Thursday, but Al Aqsa Hospital officials said bodies continued to be brought in.

The hospital said they received 21 bodies following the strikes, including some transferred from Awda hospital, where they were taken the day before.

Strikes on a motorcycle in Zuwaida and a house in Deir al Balah on Friday killed four more, hospital officials said, bringing the total toll to 25.

Among those who have been confirmed dead are five children and seven women.

The 18-month-old boy’s mother is missing and his father was killed in an Israeli strike four months ago, the family said.

The Palestinian news agency WAFA previously reported that 57 people died in the Israeli attacks.

The Israeli military did not comment on specific attacks, but said its troops had identified and eliminated “several armed terrorists” in central Gaza.

He also said his forces had eliminated “dozens of terrorists” in raids in the Jabalia area of ​​northern Gaza, home to one of the territory’s refugee camps.

It comes as the Israeli military said on Friday it had killed senior Hamas official Izz al Din Kassab, describing him as one of its last senior members, in an airstrike in Khan Younis.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have resumed heavy operations in northern Gaza in recent weeks, saying they are trying to stop Hamas, the militant group that rules Gaza, from regrouping.

Meanwhile, senior UN officials said in a statement on Friday that the situation in northern Gaza was “apocalyptic” and that the entire Palestinian population in the area was at “imminent risk of death from disease, starvation and violence”.

The total number of people killed in Gaza in the 13-month war is more than 43,000, officials from the territory’s Hamas-run Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, reported this week.

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It comes as Lebanese health authorities said Israel launched dozens of intense airstrikes on farming villages in northeastern Lebanon on Friday, killing at least 52 people and wounding 72 others.

The strikes hit rural villages that had previously been spared the worst of Israel’s intense air campaign against Hezbollah.

The governor of Baalbek, Bachir Khodr, reported airstrikes in nine villages in the northeast.

State news agency NNA separately reported four more people killed in the small farming village of Ollak.

In recent days, Israel has stepped up its airstrikes on Baalbek and nearby villages, as well as in various parts of southern Lebanon, forcing about 60,000 people from their homes, according to Hussein Haj Hassan, a Lebanese official who represents the region .

The Israeli military said in a statement that the strikes “in the Beirut area” targeted Hezbollah weapons manufacturing sites, command centers and other infrastructure.

Israeli jets also pounded Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahiyeh overnight, destroying dozens of buildings in several neighborhoods, according to the Lebanese state news agency.

More than 2,800 people have been killed and 13,000 injured since fighting between Israel and Hezbollah escalated after the Hamas attack on October 7 last year, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said.

Meanwhile, in northern Israel, seven people, including three Israelis and four Thai nationals, were killed by projectiles fired from Lebanon on Thursday, Israeli medics said.