Israeli airstrikes on a tent camp for displaced Palestinians killed and wounded 65 people in southern Gaza, the enclave's civil emergency service said early on Tuesday, as the Israeli military said it had targeted a Hamas command center, Reuters reported.

Residents and medics said a tent encampment near Khan Younis in the Al-Mawasi area, a designated humanitarian zone, was struck by at least four missiles. The camp is crowded with displaced Palestinians who have fled from elsewhere in the territory.

The Gaza civil emergency service said at least 20 tents caught on fire, and missiles caused craters as deep as nine meters (30 feet). It said the 65 victims included women and children but did not provide a breakdown of deaths and injuries.

There was no immediate comment from the Gaza health ministry, which compiles casualty figures. Earlier, the Hamas-aligned Shehab News Agency said 40 Palestinians were killed.

"Our teams are still moving out martyrs and wounded from the targeted area. It looks like a new Israeli massacre," a Gaza civil emergency official said.

The official added that teams have been struggling to search for victims who might have been buried, read the report.

The Israeli military said it "struck significant Hamas terrorists who were operating within a command and control centre embedded inside the Humanitarian Area in Khan Younis."

"The terrorists advanced and carried out terror attacks against IDF troops and the state of Israel," the statement said, referring to the Israeli Defence Forces.

Hamas, the Islamist group that controlled Gaza before the conflict, denied Israeli allegations gunmen existed in the targeted area, and rejected accusations it exploited civilian areas for military purposes.

"This is a clear lie that aims to justify these ugly crimes. The resistance has denied several times that any of its members exist within civilian gatherings or using these places for military purposes," said Hamas in a statement.

Ambulances raced between the tent camp and a nearby hospital, while Israeli jets could still be heard overhead, residents said.

Nearly all of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been forced from their homes at least once, and some have had to flee as many as 10 times, Reuters reported.

The war was triggered on Oct. 7 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Israel's subsequent assault on Gaza has killed more than 40,900 Palestinians, according to the enclave's health ministry.

The two warring sides each blame the other for a failure so far to reach a ceasefire that would end the fighting and see the release of hostages.

Multiple Israeli strikes on Syria's Hama countryside late on Sunday killed at least four civilians, Syrian state media reported, with sources saying the attacks targeted a major military research center.

Since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israeli civilians and soldiers, Israel has escalated its strikes on Iranian-backed militia targets in Syria and also struck Syrian army air defences and some Syrian forces, Reuters reported.

A local health official quoted by Syria's state news agency said 13 people were also injured, including several critically, following Sunday's strikes in the vicinity of the city of Misyaf, with ambulances still ferrying the wounded.

Two regional intelligence sources said a major military research centre for chemical arms production located near Misyaf was hit several times. It is believed to house a team of Iranian military experts involved in weapons production, read the report.

Syria's state media also reported that the strikes caused two fires, which firefighters were working to extinguish.

There has been no immediate comment from Israel, which typically does not comment on specific reports of strikes in Syria.

In the most high-profile attack on Syria since the war in Gaza began, suspected Israeli warplanes bombed Iran's embassy in April, a strike that Iran said killed seven military advisers, including three senior commanders.

At least 13 Palestinians were killed and 15 wounded in Israeli strikes on a school sheltering refugees and a residential building in Gaza, the Palestinian Authority's official news agency WAFA reported early on Saturday.

At least eight of the dead were in refugee tents at Halima al-Sa'diyya School in Jabalia in northern Gaza, WAFA said.

The Israeli army said in a statement it had "conducted a precise strike on terrorists who were operating inside a Hamas command and control centre... embedded inside a compound that previously served as the 'Halima al-Sa'diyya' School in the northern Gaza Strip."

In a separate incident, five Palestinians were killed in an Israeli strike on a residential building in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza.

The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered Oct. 7 last year when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's subsequent assault on the Hamas-governed enclave has since killed over 40,800 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, while displacing nearly the entire population of 2.3 million, causing a hunger crisis and leading to genocide allegations at the World Court that Israel denies.

According to the United Nations, at least 1.9 million people across the Gaza Strip are internally displaced, including some uprooted more than 10 times.