At least 42 Palestinians were killed in Israeli air strikes on residential houses in two areas of Gaza City, according to Palestinian security and medical sources.

"About 18 were killed and dozens of others wounded in al-Shati refugee camp after the Israeli warplanes attacked a residential square," Palestinian medical sources told Xinhua.

The medical sources noted that the number of victims is likely to increase as the civil defense teams were still trying to pull out the victims from the rubble, adding that the residential square had become "a huge amount of ruins."

Palestinian security sources said that Israeli warplanes launched several raids on al-Shati refugee camp, destroying seven inhabited homes.

Also on Saturday, at least 24 Palestinians, including women and children, were killed during Israeli air strikes on houses in the al-Tuffah neighborhood in the northeast of Gaza City, the Hamas-run government media office said in a press statement.

The Israeli army said on Saturday in a press statement that its warplanes had attacked two Hamas military infrastructure sites in Gaza City.

According to the Times of Israel, the Israeli army targeted Raed Saad, a senior commander of Hamas in Gaza. So far, there has been no official Palestinian confirmation of his death.

Saad, identified as a chief of Hamas operations, was reportedly believed to have been at Gaza City's al-Shifa Hospital during an Israeli raid in March, although he was not found there at the time.

Meanwhile, Yemen's armed Houthi group said in a statement on Saturday that it had launched ballistic missiles at U.S. aircraft carrier the Eisenhower in the northern Red Sea.

"The missile force in our armed forces carried out an operation targeting the American aircraft carrier Eisenhower in the northern Red Sea with several ballistic and cruise missiles, and the operation achieved its goals successfully," Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Sarea said in a statement aired by Houthi-run al-Masirah TV.

However, there is currently no evidence to confirm that the aircraft carrier was indeed attacked.

This is the second claimed attack by Houthis targeting the U.S. aircraft carrier Eisenhower in the Red Sea in less than a month. The first attack against the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, on which the U.S. military didn't comment, was on May 31.

Sarea said that the militant group also attacked the merchant vessel Transworld Navigator in the Arabian Sea with ballistic missiles, as a response to what Houthis called the vessel owner's violation of their entry ban to Israeli ports.

The statement threatened more such strikes "until the (Israeli) aggression stops and the siege on the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip is lifted."

Earlier in the day, fighter jets of the U.S.-UK coalition conducted four air strikes against Houthi targets northwest of Yemen's Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, according to the Houthi al-Masirah television.

Hours before the coalition air strikes, the UK Maritime Trade Operations reported explosions in the vicinity of a merchant vessel 126 nautical miles east of Yemen's southern port city of Aden. There were no reports of casualties or damage.

The Houthi group, which controls much of northern Yemen, began in November last year to launch anti-ship ballistic missiles and drones targeting what they said were Israeli-linked ships transiting the Red Sea in what they said was a show of solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

(With input from Xinhua)