JERUSALEM - More than 80 ambassadors and heads of mission from across the world were addressed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday as Israel Air Force pilots continued to bombard the heavily besieged Gaza Strip.

According to local health authorities, 53 Palestinians were killed and scores more injured, most of them severely, in aerial bombing raids across Gaza on Sunday.

Another twenty-four people were killed in pre-dawn attacks on Monday. 10 members of a family died in an airstrike targeting a residential area in Jabalia; another family of 8 were killed in a separate attack on another home in Jabalia; while 4 bodies were retrieved from the rubble of a home pilots targeted on Sunday night; also a girl and an infant died from injuries they received when an air strike struck their tent in Khan Younis on Sunday.

According to local health authorities, the death toll has now risen to 52,243, while 117,639 have been wounded in the 18-months conflict. Thousands more are missing, believed to be buried in rubble.

Prime Minister Netanyahu on Sunday defended Israel's conduct of the war in Gaza at his meeting with the international delegation at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem, in company with Israel's Ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon.

"The ambassadors, who represent countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America, heard from the prime minister at length about the State of Israel's just struggle in the international arena, on the conduct of the war in Gaza and the efforts for the release of the hostages, and the fight against antisemitism," a statement by the prime minister's office released on Sunday said.

"Prime Minister Netanyahu answered the ambassadors' questions and welcomed them to Israel, and called on them to convey the truth and justice of Israel to the leadership and public in their countries," the statement said.

The international delegation of diplomats was in Israel at the invitation of the Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Sa'ar to a ceremony for Holocaust Remembrance Day at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem.

The Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony was dedicated to the memory of diplomats designated as Righteous Among the Nations. It took place adjacent to the Righteous Among the Nations Wall at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which honors 49 diplomats who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.