Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed another 46 people waiting for aid in the Palestinian territory on Tuesday as rights groups and UN agencies slammed the US-backed food distribution system.

Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that 21 people were killed and around 150 wounded by Israeli fire near an aid point in central Gaza early Tuesday, and that another 25 were killed in a separate incident in south Gaza.

"Every day we face this scenario: martyrs, injuries, in unbearable numbers," paramedic Ziad Farhat told AFP at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza.

"Hospitals cannot accommodate the number of casualties arriving," he said.

Israel's opposition leader and the families of Israeli hostages being held in Gaza called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to widen a ceasefire with Iran to include the Palestinian territory.

But the country's military chief later warned that Israel would now refocus on its campaign to crush the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in the territory.

"Now the focus shifts back to Gaza -- to bring the hostages home and to dismantle the Hamas regime," chief of staff Lieutenant General Eyal........

© Al Monitor