Gaza’s civil defence agency says Israeli strikes killed at least 44 people as Israel’s prime minister vowed a _”strong response”_ to a rare salvo of rockets fired from the Hamas-ruled territory.

Civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP on Sunday: “The death toll as a result of Israeli air strikes since dawn today is at least 44, including 21 in Khan Yunis,”_ a city in the southern Gaza Strip.

One strike killed six people on Al-Nakheel Street in the Al-Tuffah neighbourhood of Gaza City, where a group had gathered near a bakery, Bassal said. Three children were among the dead, he said.

Dozens of Palestinians have been killed almost daily since Israel resumed its military offensive in Gaza on March 18, ending a two-month ceasefire that had brought relative calm to the territory.

AFP footage captured thick plumes of smoke rising from central and northern Gaza as Israeli forces bombarded areas of the besieged Palestinian territory.