### Heavy Bombardment in Gaza Claims Lives, Including Journalist and Young Children

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Intense airstrikes hit the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza overnight into Thursday, resulting in over 50 fatalities. Concurrently, another airstrike in the northern part of Gaza claimed more than ten lives, as reported by local authorities. These strikes coincided with U.S. President Donald Trump's visit to the Middle East, which has raised hopes for a potential ceasefire or increased humanitarian aid to Gaza, currently under an Israeli blockade for three months.

An Associated Press cameraman on the scene in Khan Younis witnessed ten airstrikes and photographed numerous bodies being transported to the morgue at Nasser Hospital. The facility confirmed a death toll of 54. Among the deceased was Hasan Samour, a journalist from Qatari network Al Araby TV, who perished along with 11 family members in one of the strikes.

This bombardment follows a similarly devastating night of heavy bombing on Wednesday, which resulted in the deaths of at least 70 people, including nearly two dozen children, in both northern and southern Gaza. A further attack in Jabaliya, northern Gaza, targeted a complex with a mosque and a medical clinic, leading to 13 more deaths, according to Gaza's Hamas-run Civil Defense.

At Nasser Hospital, Safaa Al-Najjar, her blood-streaked face revealing her trauma, wept uncontrollably as bodies of two of her children, 1 1/2-year-old Motaz Al-Bayyok and 1 1/2-month-old Moaz Al-Bayyok, were brought to her. Victims of the overnight strikes, all five of Al-Najjar's other children, aged 3 to 12, sustained injuries, while her husband was in intensive care. Amid the chaos, her 11-year-old son Yusuf, with a heavily bandaged head, cried out in agony upon seeing the lifeless body of his sibling.

"I gave them dinner and put them to sleep as usual, it was a normal day. Suddenly I don't know what happened, the world went upside down," Al-Najjar said as supporters attempted to console her. "I don't know, I don't know... what is their fault? What is their fault?"

Outside Nasser Hospital, mourners gathered to pray over the bodies, wrapped in white shrouds and lined up to be transported for burial.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asserted that Israel will continue to escalate its military operations in Gaza to accomplish his goal of dismantling the governing Hamas group.