Israeli strike kills at least 33 people at Gaza school
An Israeli strike at a UN school sheltering displaced Palestinians in central Gaza has killed more than 30 people, according to local health officials. This total included 23 women and children. The Israeli military said Hamas militants were operating from within the Nuseirat school. nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk nhk
The strike came after the military announced a new ground and air assault in several refugee camps in central Gaza, pursuing Hamas militants it says have regrouped there.
It is the latest instance of troops sweeping back into sections of the Gaza Strip they have previously attacked.
Witnesses and hospital officials said the pre-dawn strike hit the al-Sardi School, run by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees known by the acronym UNRWA.
People cry around a body covered in Israeli strike
Palestinians mourn relatives killed in the strike outside a hospital in Deir al Balah. (AP: Abdel Kareem Hana)
The school was filled with Palestinians who had fled Israeli offensives and bombardment in northern Gaza, they said.
Ayman Rashed, a man displaced from Gaza City who was sheltering at the school, said the missiles hit classrooms on the second and third floor where families were sheltering.
“It was dark, with no electricity, and we struggled to get out the victims,” Mr Rashed said.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the nearby town of Deir al-Balah received at least 33 dead from the strike, including 14 children and nine women, according to hospital records and an Associated Press reporter at the hospital.
Another strike on a house overnight killed six people, according to the records.
Mohammed al-Kareem said there were chaotic scenes outside the al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital following the strike. (AP: Abdel Kareem Hana)
Mohammed al-Kareem, a displaced Palestinian sheltering near the hospital, described chaotic scenes outside the facility.
He said vehicles arrived one after the other, as distressed people rushed wounded people into the emergency department.
Footage showed bodies wrapped in blankets or plastic bags being laid out in lines in the courtyard of the hospital, which was largely dark as staff try to conserve limited fuel for electricity.
Mr Al-Kareem said he saw people searching for their loved ones among bodies.
“The situation is tragic,” he said.
Israeli military says Hamas had embedded a ‘compound’
The Israeli military said Hamas had embedded a “compound” within the school and that Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants inside were using it as a shelter where they were planning attacks against Israeli troops.
Israel launched its campaign in Gaza after Hamas’s October 7 terrorist attack into Israel, in which militants killed some 1,200 people and took another 250 hostage.
Israel’s offensive has killed at least 36,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its figures.
Israel blames civilian deaths on Hamas because it positions fighters, tunnels and rocket launchers in residential areas.
The military did not immediately offer evidence.
It released a photo of the school, pointing to classrooms on the second and third floor where it claimed militants were located.
It said it took steps before the strike “to reduce the risk of harming uninvolved civilians … including conducting aerial surveillance, and additional intelligence information.”
Israeli military spokesperson Lt Col Peter Lerner said 20-30 fighters were located in the school and many had been killed.
He said he was unaware of civilian casualties from the strike.
UNRWA schools across Gaza have functioned as shelters since the start of the war, which has driven most of the territory’s population of 2.3 million Palestinians from their homes.
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Israel launched its campaign in Gaza after Hamas’s October 7 terrorist attack into Israel, in which militants killed some 1,200 people and took another 250 hostage.
Israel’s offensive has killed at least 36,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its figures.
Israel blames civilian deaths on Hamas because it positions fighters, tunnels and rocket launchers in residential areas.
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