At least 24 Palestinians, mostly women and children, were killed in three separate Israeli airstrikes on Gaza City Tuesday, amid growing fears of a wider regional war.

Israeli tanks also pressed deeper into western areas of Rafah in the south of the enclave overnight, blowing up homes, residents said.

Two of the Israeli airstrikes hit two schools in Gaza City, killing at least 14 people, medics said. Another strike on a house in the Shati (Beach) camp, one of the Gaza Strip's eight historic refugee camps, killed 10 others.

The house in Shati belonged to the extended family of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh, who is based in Qatar, killing one of his sisters along with other relatives too, family members and medics said.

Haniyeh, who leads Hamas' diplomacy and is the public face of the group that has been running Gaza, has lost many relatives in Israeli air strikes since Oct. 7, including three sons.

Israel's military said its forces had targeted Palestinian resistance members overnight in Gaza City who had been allegedly involved in the planning of attacks on Israel.

The Israeli air force struck multiple structures, including UNRWA schools housing displaced people, in Shati and Daraj Tuffah in the northern Gaza Strip. The military said Hamas members were operating from inside the school complex, a claim denied by the group.

The group described the attacks on the two schools and the house in Shati camp as "massacres."

"We hold the administration of U.S. President Joe Boden responsible for the continued war of genocide against our Palestinian people in Gaza Strip through continuing to offer the Zionist government and its criminal army political and military cover," Hamas said in a statement.

Israel's genocidal war on Gaza, in comparison, has killed more than 37,347 Palestinians, the Gaza Health Ministry said, and reduced most of the narrow, coastal enclave to wasteland, with malnutrition widespread.

Hezbollah conflict

More than eight months into the fighting, international mediation backed by the United States has so far failed to bring a cease-fire agreement. Hamas says any agreement must bring an end to the war, while Israel says it will agree only to temporary pauses in fighting until Hamas is eradicated.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday the phase of intense fighting against Hamas would end "very soon," freeing up more forces for deployment on Israel's northern border with Lebanon, where fighting with Iran-backed Hezbollah has escalated.

Israel's national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, said Tuesday Israel would spend the coming weeks trying to resolve the conflict with Hezbollah and would prefer a diplomatic solution there. Shelling has led to the evacuation of tens of thousands of people on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border.

The conflict was triggered by the Oct. 7 Hamas incursion of southern Israel, causing the death of around 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's genocidal war on Gaza, in comparison, has killed more than 37,600 Palestinians, the Gaza Health Ministry said, and reduced most of the narrow, coastal enclave to wasteland, with malnutrition widespread.

Since early May, fighting has focused on Rafah, on Gaza's southern edge abutting the border with Egypt, where around half of the enclave's 2.3 million people have been sheltering after fleeing other areas.

Gaza's health ministry said Tuesday that hospitals and medical centers in the enclave were experiencing a severe shortage of medicines and medical supplies due to the continued Israeli offensive, Israel's control and closure of all crossings and its targeting of the health sector in Gaza.

In particularly short supply are medications needed for emergency, anesthesia, intensive care and operations, the ministry said in a statement.