Rockets fired from Gaza as Israeli strikes kill 12, rescuers say

Israel said three rockets were fired toward its territory on Friday from the Gaza Strip, where rescuers reported at least 12 people killed in Israeli strikes.

The rockets were the latest in a spate of recent launches from the devastated Palestinian territory, with Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz warning of even more intense retaliatory strikes if they continued.

The military said one of Friday's rockets "fell adjacent to the community of Nir Am and the second projectile fell in an open area".

Earlier in the day, it said another rocket fired from Gaza had triggered sirens near Beeri.

No injuries were reported from the launches.

In Gaza, meanwhile, first responders recovered the bodies of 12 Palestinians, "including several children", who were killed in air strikes on Gaza City, the central Maghazi refugee camp and the southern city of Rafah, said Mahmoud Bassal, spokesman for Gaza's civil defence.

"Friday was a harsh day for the residents of Gaza, particularly in Gaza City, due to the continuous Israeli bombardment," told AFP.

Bassal noted that 10 of the fatalities occurred in strikes on northern and central Gaza, and two were in the south, adding that dozens were injured across the territory.

The Israeli military said in a statement that during the past day, "the Israeli air force struck approximately 40 Hamas terrorist gathering points" throughout Gaza.

Some of the targets "were embedded in areas that previously served as schools", it said.

Bassal denied the military's claims, accusing Israeli forces of "committing massacres under the pretext of the presence of militants".

He also alleged that the forces were "preventing food and drinking water from reaching dozens of medical staff, patients, and the injured" at the Indonesian Hospital in the town of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip.

He said his agency had received distress calls from the hospital since Thursday, adding that the facility "is nearly destroyed".

"It's just a pile of rubble and walls; there's no hospital."

The Israeli army has conducted intense raids in Gaza's north since October 6, claiming it aims to keep Hamas fighters from regrouping there.

On Friday, the army reported that one of its brigades had been active in the northern town of Beit Hanoun over the past week, conducting raids and eliminating "armed terrorist cells".

Bassal estimated that 10,000 people remained in the northern towns of Jabalia, Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun, down from between 150,000 and 200,000 before the war.

Most of those who fled the area went to Gaza City in the territory's centre.

The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel last year, which resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel's retaliatory response has so far killed at least 45,581 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, figures which the United Nations considers reliable.

The Israeli military on Friday also shot down a missile and a drone launched from Yemen, the latest in a series of attacks from the country targeting Israel in recent weeks.

Much of Yemen is controlled by Iran-backed Huthi rebels, who have been firing missiles and drones at Israel -- as well as at ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden -- in what they say is solidarity with Palestinians during the war in Gaza.

Israel has also struck Yemen, including targeting Sanaa's international airport at the end of December.