The assault in Deir el-Balah is the newest in a string of strikes on colleges sheltering displaced households in Gaza.
An Israeli air strike on a school-turned-shelter within the central Gaza Strip has killed a minimum of 28 individuals and wounded dozens of others, in accordance with Palestinian authorities.
“Palestine Pink Crescent groups responded to twenty-eight fatalities and 54 accidents following the Israeli occupation military’s concentrating on of Rafida College,” the Palestinian Pink Crescent stated on Thursday. Gaza’s Well being Ministry additionally confirmed the demise toll.
“The Israeli occupation dedicated a brand new bloodbath by concentrating on the displaced within the [Rafida] faculty within the Deir el-Balah space within the central governorate this afternoon, the place 28 martyrs and greater than 54 accidents arrived on the hospitals,” the ministry stated.
Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah, stated youngsters and girls “had been torn to items by the depth of the strike”.
“I noticed with my very own eyes numerous our bodies that had been torn to items, making it fairly exhausting to establish them except relations managed to search out out who they had been from some indicators of their clothes within the hospital morgue,” Abu Azzoum stated.
He stated the Israeli military didn’t problem a warning earlier than placing the constructing.
The Israeli military claimed in an announcement the strike focused Hamas fighters working from a so-called command-and-control centre “embedded inside a compound that beforehand served because the [Rafida] College”.
It didn’t present proof, however claimed the constructing was used “to plan and execute terrorist assaults towards [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 12 months.
The assaults have predominantly killed youngsters and girls. Lots of the colleges run by the UN’s company for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) have additionally been broken or destroyed.
On September 26, a minimum of 15 individuals had been killed in one other school-turned-shelter strike in northern Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp, in accordance with Gaza’s civil defence.
The Israeli navy launched a renewed floor assault in Jabalia, the place hundreds of households have been trapped inside their houses within the ravaged space that has beforehand seen a number of floor and aerial assaults.
In accordance with Abu Azzoum, the Israeli military is “inspecting homes” within the camp and finishing up arrests of males who’re 14 years outdated and older.
They’re “driving them to undisclosed places throughout the Gaza Strip,” he stated.
At the least 42,065 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s navy marketing campaign in Gaza for the reason that struggle started in October, 2023.
