AT LEAST 12 people were killed today when two air strikes hit the central Gaza Strip.

Two children and four women were among those killed in the strikes that hit Nuseirat and Bureij.

The bodies were taken to al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah and funerals for all 12 were held later in the day.

In the southern border city of Rafah, Palestinians reported heavy fighting as Israel’s military widened its offensive in the south of the coastal territory, seizing control of the entire length of Gaza’s border with Egypt. 

Fighting in Rafah has caused more than one million Palestinians to flee, most of whom had already been displaced earlier in the fighting. 

They are now seeking refuge in makeshift tent camps in other war-ravaged areas, but shelter, food, water and other essentials for survival are lacking, the United Nations says.

The Israel war on Gaza has killed more than 36,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Israel began its current military onslaught in Gaza after a Hamas attack in southern Israel on October 7, during which some 1,200 people were killed and around 250 abducted. 

Israel says around 100 hostages are still being held in Gaza.

The Israeli army said today that it had completed its mission in part of the northern city of Jabaliya and would continue operations elsewhere.

The military claimed, without offering evidence, that its operations in eastern Jabaliya had killed hundreds of fighters, destroyed dozens of targets and combat compounds and located hundreds of weapons.

It also claimed to have destroyed more than six miles of underground tunnels and to have retrieved the bodies of seven hostages and returned them to their families in Israel.

Israeli troops returned to Jabaliya and urrounding areas of northern Gaza in early May, months after an earlier operation. 

In the United States, meanwhile, campus protests against Israel’s  action show no sign of dying down, but neither does a brutal clampdown by university authorities and the police.

Protest camps sprang up across the world as students demanded that their universities stop doing business with Israel and companies that support its war in Gaza. 

At the University of California, Santa Cruz, police confronted peaceful protesters early today.

Video footage showed a line of officers with batons a few feet from protesters. It was not immediately clear whether there had been any arrests or injuries. 

The day before, arrests were made at a pro-Palestinian encampment on a Detroit campus.

Thursday also saw students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology walk out during a commencement ceremony to show their opposition to Israel’s war.