**Rising Casualties as Gaza and Lebanon Face Intense Israeli Strikes**

The number of casualties from Israeli airstrikes in the central Gaza Strip has escalated to 25, including five children, as more bodies were recovered, officials reported on Friday. Separate attacks near the Lebanese capital also resulted in three fatalities from an early morning strike.

Initially, 16 people were reported dead following two strikes on Thursday in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. However, officials from Al-Aqsa hospital revealed that additional bodies have since been brought in, raising the count. The hospital received 21 bodies in total from those strikes, some of which were transferred from Awda hospital.

Among the victims were an 18-month-old child and his 10-year-old sister. The children's mother remains missing as of Friday, and their father had been killed in an Israeli airstrike four months earlier, according to family members at Aqsa hospital. Further strikes on a motorcycle in Zuwaida and on a house in Deir al-Balah on Friday claimed four more lives, bringing the overall death toll to 25.

The Israeli military has not commented on specific incidents but stated it had targeted armed militants in central and southern Gaza on Thursday. Health officials in Gaza report that over 43,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 7, 2023; however, these figures do not differentiate between civilians and combatants, with more than half of the casualties being women and children. The Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza added that 55 people were killed and 196 wounded in the last 24 hours alone.

Israel's air offensive began in response to a Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which resulted in approximately 1,200 Israeli fatalities and around 250 hostages being taken to Gaza.

Despite international calls for a cease-fire, Israeli airstrikes continued unabated in Southern Beirut's Dahiyeh suburb early Friday, demolishing dozens of buildings and igniting fires, the state-run National News Agency of Lebanon reported. This comes after a brief four-day period without strikes in the area.

The conflict has also intensified in northeastern Baalbek and southern Lebanon. An airstrike early Friday on the outskirts of Qamatiyeh, southeast of Beirut, killed three and injured five, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. The strike caused minor damage to a nearby apartment.

Lebanon's Health Ministry stated that the conflict has resulted in more than 2,800 deaths and 13,000 injuries since October 8, 2023, when Hezbollah began daily rocket attacks into Israel, which have provoked Israeli retaliatory strikes.