Palestinian health officials said seven people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering displaced families in Gaza City on Sunday. The Israeli military said it had targeted militants operating from the premises.
The attack hit the Kafr Qasim school in the beach camp at around 11 am (0800 GMT), officials said. They said those killed included Majed Saleh, director of the Hamas-run Ministry of Public Works and Housing.
The Israeli military said the target of the attack was Hamas fighters, and that it used aerial surveillance and took other steps to limit the risk to civilians.
Hamas, the Islamist militant group that rules Gaza, has regularly denied Israeli allegations that it is using hospitals and other civilian buildings for military purposes in the nearly year-old war.
The attack and reports of other violence in Gaza come at a time of heightened clashes between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah forces across the Lebanese border in the north – a parallel conflict that has raised fears of wider regional unrest.
Six other Palestinians were killed in separate air strikes in central and southern Gaza, medics said, raising the number of Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks so far on Sunday to 16.
Residents in Rafah, near Gaza’s border with Egypt, said Israeli tanks had moved toward western parts of the city, where the army has been operating since May, and taken up positions on some hills overlooking the coastal road.
Israel’s demand to maintain control of the southern border line between Rafah and Egypt has been a major obstacle to international efforts to reach a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.
Hamas’ armed wing said fighters had carried out several attacks against Israeli forces in Rafah, firing anti-tank rockets and bombing houses where Israeli troops had taken up positions.
In a statement on Saturday, the Israeli military said forces operating in Rafah since May had killed dozens of militants and destroyed military infrastructure and tunnel shafts in recent weeks.
On Sunday, Gaza’s health ministry warned that all hospitals could cease services within 10 days due to a shortage of vital spare parts and oil needed to run fuel-powered generators.
Heavy rain overnight caused waterlogging in tent camps, adding to the unrest and misery.
“Ten minutes of rain was enough to submerge the tents. What if it rains all day? The tents are already worn out and can’t withstand the cold,” said Ayaa, who has been displaced with her family to the central city of Deir al-Balah, where around one million people are sheltering.
“We don’t want new tents. We want an end to the war. We don’t want a temporary solution to hell,” the 30-year-old told Reuters via a chat app.
Juliette Touma, communications director for the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, said people need more shelters and supplies to cope with the coming winter.
“The rain and the drop in temperatures are likely to make people fall sick, especially children, who are most vulnerable to colds and flu,” Touma told Reuters.
The war in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict began on October 7 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli figures.
Israel’s assault on the enclave has killed more than 41,300 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, displacing nearly the entire population of 2.3 million.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
