The assault in Deir el-Balah is the newest in a string of strikes on faculties sheltering displaced households in Gaza.
An Israeli air strike on a school-turned-shelter within the central Gaza Strip has killed at the very least 28 individuals and wounded dozens of others, in response to Palestinian authorities.
“Palestine Red Crescent teams responded to 28 fatalities and 54 injuries following the Israeli occupation army’s targeting of Rafida School,” the Palestinian Purple Crescent stated on Thursday. Gaza’s Well being Ministry additionally confirmed the dying toll.
“The Israeli occupation committed a new massacre by targeting the displaced in the [Rafida] school in the Deir el-Balah area in the central governorate this afternoon, where 28 martyrs and more than 54 injuries arrived at the hospitals,” the ministry stated.
Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah, stated kids and girls “were torn to pieces by the intensity of the strike”.
“I saw with my own eyes lots of bodies that were torn to pieces, making it quite hard to identify them unless family members managed to find out who they were from some signs in their clothing in the hospital morgue,” Abu Azzoum stated.
He stated the Israeli military didn’t situation a warning earlier than placing the constructing.
The Israeli military claimed in a press release the strike focused Hamas fighters working from a so-called command-and-control centre “embedded inside a compound that previously served as the [Rafida] School”.
It didn’t present proof, however claimed the constructing was used “to plan and execute terrorist attacks against [Israeli army] troops and the State of Israel”.
Thursday’s assault was the newest in a string of Israeli strikes on faculty buildings housing displaced Palestinians in Gaza, the place combating has raged for greater than a yr.
The assaults have predominantly killed kids and girls. Most of the faculties run by the UN’s company for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) have additionally been broken or destroyed.
On September 26, at the very least 15 individuals had been killed in one other school-turned-shelter strike in northern Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp, in response to Gaza’s civil defence.
The Israeli navy launched a renewed floor assault in Jabalia, the place 1000’s of households have been trapped inside their properties within the ravaged space that has beforehand seen a number of floor and aerial assaults.
In response to Abu Azzoum, the Israeli military is “inspecting houses” within the camp and finishing up arrests of males who’re 14 years outdated and older.
They’re “driving them to undisclosed locations across the Gaza Strip,” he stated.
Not less than 42,065 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s navy marketing campaign in Gaza because the conflict started in October, 2023.
