LONDON: Israeli forces struck the historic Abu Salim Mosque in Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza, on Monday, Palestinian media reported, destroying what is regarded as one of the territory’s oldest mosques.

Several Palestinians were reportedly injured in the attack.

Video shared by news outlets and social media users showed dark smoke rising from the site following the strike. The Abu Salim Mosque was widely regarded as one of Gaza’s oldest and most historically significant religious landmarks.

“The loss of Deir Al-Balah’s Abu Salim Mosque is a tremendous cultural loss,” Maysa Yousef, an artist based in central Gaza, told Arab News. “It’s an important landmark and a very old heritage site.”

Yousef said she and her family watched plumes of smoke rise from the mosque from their bombed-out home.

Elsewhere in Gaza, a 4-year-old boy and another Palestinian were killed in separate Israeli strikes on a house in the Bureij refugee camp and a road in Khan Younis, Reuters reported, citing medics.

Earlier Monday, another Israeli strike killed one person and wounded another at a tent in Deir Al-Balah, medics said.

The Israeli military said the Deir Al-Balah strike targeted a Hamas militant.

The strikes came amid a broader escalation in Gaza after kites drifted from the enclave into southern Israel, prompting Israeli officials to threaten stronger military action.

Several kites were found over the weekend in an Israeli community near the Gaza border, Israeli media reported.

“Forceful actions will be taken to put an end to this phenomenon,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Monday.

Israeli media reported that the military was compiling a list of targets, considering strikes against operatives at different levels and ordering evacuations from areas used to launch the kites.

“Today, almost every part of Gaza was struck,” Yousef said. “In each part, (the Israeli army) struck something — a water desalination plant, a mosque, a tent, a prayer area or a home.”

She said evacuation orders had been issued for entire blocks, leaving residents to flee without knowing which buildings would be targeted.

In Bureij, Yousef said residents fled after an entire block was ordered evacuated, but one family remained in a tent and was killed when it was struck. She said displaced people living in tents were exhausted by repeated displacement and deprivation.

“People in tents, especially, are exhausted and despairing,” she said. “They would rather die than be displaced and homeless again. They have been through so much.”