Israel pummeled Gaza City with more than 15 strikes Thursday, killing more than 40 people and injuring 120 others, the besieged enclave’s civil defense agency said, calling the tempo and number of strikes high compared with recent days.

The Israeli military kept up the pressure on northern Gaza on Wednesday, striking in a suburb of Gaza City, medics said, and told residents in a central part of the enclave to evacuate from an area where militants were firing rockets.

Israel's military said Thursday that it had killed Gaza's police chief in an airstrike on the enclave's Al-Mawasi humanitarian zone outside the southern city of Khan Younis.