Gazan death toll up to 572

The death toll in Gaza has risen to 572, Gaza’s health ministry says.

Gaza emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Kidra says air strikes and shelling killed 55 people across the enclave on Monday, and another 68 bodies were pulled from the rubble in areas hit by heavy fighting a day earlier.

The army also says its troops killed “more than 10 terrorists” who had infiltrated southern Israel through two tunnels, sparking a firefight that reportedly wounded several soldiers.

Terrorists killed inside Israel are not included in Kidra’s Gaza toll.

The latest deaths included six people killed in two artillery strikes, three of whom died in the southern city of Rafah and another three in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.

Of the 55 people killed on Monday, around one-third of them were children, Kidra said.

Seven children were among nine dead in an air raid on a house in Rafah, and another four children were killed in another strike on a house in Gaza City that killed nine people.

A nighttime airstrike on a residential tower block in Gaza City killed 11 people, including five children, Kidra said, and a simultaneous strike in the central Strip killed another.

תמונה של הבניין שהופץ בעזה. 15 הרוגים לדברי הפלסטינים בהם כנראה מנהיג בכיר בחזית הדמוקרטית. pic.twitter.com/Li52AaixxX

— yoram cohen (@cohen_yoram) July 21, 2014

An Israeli tank shell slammed into a hospital in Deir al-Balah, killing four people, among them doctors, Kidra said, indicating at least 70 people were wounded.

The army said it targeted a stockpile of antitank missiles stored next to the hospital and regretted civilian deaths, but blamed Hamas for placing military assets amid civilian infrastructure.

The death toll in Israel is 27, including 25 soldiers.

— AFP and Times of Israel staff