At least 28 people, including women and children, were killed in an Israeli airstrike Thursday on a school sheltering displaced people in central Gaza, while three hospitals in the north were told to evacuate, putting patients’ lives at risk. Gone, the doctors said.
The attack, which injured several people, took place in the city of Deir al-Balah, where one million people have taken refuge after more than a year of war fleeing fighting elsewhere.
The Israeli military said Thursday it had launched a “precision strike” on terrorists who had a command and control center in a school.
“This is another example of the systematic abuse of civilian infrastructure by the Hamas terrorist organization in violation of international law,” a military statement said.
The Palestinian group denies such allegations. Medics said 54 other people were injured at the school.
In Gaza’s north, the Israeli army was carrying out an offensive that began six days earlier, when it sent troops into Jabaliya, the largest of Gaza’s eight historic refugee camps, and the nearby towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya.
On Thursday, the army said it had killed at least 12 militants from Hamas and Iran-backed Islamic Jihad who were operating from a command and control center at a medical complex in Jabaliya earlier. It said a large quantity of arms and ammunition had been stored at the site.
Palestinian health officials say at least 130 people have been killed so far in the operation, which Israel says is aimed at preventing Hamas from regrouping.
The army has asked residents to evacuate the area in which the United Nations estimates more than 400,000 people are trapped.
Health officials said Israeli forces on Wednesday gave patients and physicians 24 hours to leave the Indonesian, Al-Awda and Kamal Adwan hospitals, otherwise risking an attack as was the case at Gaza City’s Al Shifa hospital. Had happened earlier during the war.
Israel, which has not yet commented on evacuation orders for medical facilities, has said that Hamas has hidden command facilities within hospitals, which it denies.
Hussam Abu Safia, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, said eight patients, mostly children with severe shrapnel wounds, were in danger inside intensive care units if the army forced them out, and the hospital was also out of fuel. Had been.
appeal for help
Abu Safia called for international pressure on Israel to allow medical staff to continue working in three hospitals in northern Gaza, saying: “Our message is a message of peace for the sake of those children.”
Ramesh Rajasingham, director of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said the OCHA-World Health Organization team could not reach Kamal Adwan Hospital despite getting the go-ahead from the Israeli military.
“The team was forced to wait for hours at the holding point and, ultimately, the mission had to be aborted. And this is not an unusual practice,” Rajasingham told a UN meeting. “In September, less than 10% of coordinated missions in the north (of Gaza) were facilitated by Israeli authorities.
“The conditions necessary for effective aid operations are severely lacking or absent altogether,” he said.
Doctors said Israeli bombing near Kamal Adwan Hospital had already caused some damage to the hospital. He said that he knew that due to Israeli firing, many bodies were lying on the streets outside the hospital.
The Israeli military told residents of Jabaliya and surrounding areas to move to humanitarian-designated areas in southern Gaza, but Palestinian and UN officials say there is no safe place to flee in the densely populated area.
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, told the UN Security Council: “Hundreds of thousands of people are being forced to move again to the south, where living conditions are unbearable.”
Residents said Israeli forces had surrounded Jabaliya and ordered them to leave through a corridor. He said soldiers were interrogating and arresting those leaving, while anyone who tried to leave through a different route was fired upon.
Hamas and ally Islamic Jihad said they continued to fight Israeli forces with anti-tank rockets and mortar bombs.
The Israeli military said it killed dozens more militants, seized weapons and destroyed terrorist infrastructure in the north.
Israel launched its offensive after Hamas-led militants launched cross-border attacks on southern Israeli communities on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli data.
The Gaza Health Ministry says more than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks. Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced and much of the area devastated.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)