Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli fire killed 25 people on Saturday in the Palestinian territory devastated by more than 21 months of war.

Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP the dead included nine people killed in three separate air strikes in Gaza City.

Eleven people were killed in four separate strikes near the southern city of Khan Yunis, while two were killed in a drone strike in Nuseirat refugee camp, he added.

Bassal said three people were killed by Israeli gunfire while waiting for aid in three separate incidents in northern, central and southern Gaza.

One of the three was killed “after Israeli forces opened fire on people waiting for humanitarian aid” northwest of Gaza City, the agency said.

Witnesses told AFP that several thousand people had gathered in the area.

One of them, Abu Samir Hamoudeh, 42, said the Israeli military opened fire “while the people were waiting to approach the distribution point”, located near an Israeli military post in the Zikim area, northwest of Sudaniyah.

The Israeli military told AFP that its troops fired “warning shots to distance the crowd” after identifying an “immediate threat”.

The civil defence agency said another man was killed by a drone strike near Khan Yunis, while one was killed by artillery fire in the Al-Bureij camp in central Gaza.

Bassal said civil defence teams also recovered the bodies of 12 people following Israeli bombardment north of Rafah the previous night.

The recovery operation was conducted in coordination with the UN humanitarian office (OCHA), he said, adding that the bodies were taken to Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis.

Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify tolls and details provided by the civil defence agency and other parties.