Israeli airstrikes across Gaza on Wednesday hit a UN school sheltering displaced Palestinian families as well as two homes, killing at least 34 people, including 19 women and children, hospital officials said. In the occupied West Bank, an Israeli soldier was killed Wednesday when the driver of "a Palestinian truck" rammed into "forces conducting operational activity", said the Israeli soldier.
An Israeli airstrike killed at least 14 people, including two children, when it hit a UN school sheltering displaced Palestinian families in central Gaza on Wednesday, hospital officials said.
The Israeli military said it was targeting Hamas militants planning attacks from inside the school, located in the Nuseirat refugee camp. The claim could not be independently confirmed.
Officials from Awda Hospital in Nuseirat said they had received 10 dead from the strike, and another four dead were brought to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the nearby town of Deir al-Balah. At least one woman and two children were among those killed, and at least 18 people were wounded, hospital officials said.
One of the children was the daughter of Momin Selmi, a member of Gaza’s civil defence agency, which does emergency rescue work after Israeli strikes, the agency said in a statement. Selmi hadn’t seen his daughter for 10 months, since he remained in north Gaza to keep working while his family fled south, the agency said.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians driven from their homes by Israeli offensives and evacuation orders are living in Gaza’s schools.
The school hit Thursday – called the al-Jaouni Boys Preparatory School, one of the many in Gaza run by the UN agency for Palestinians UNWRA – has been hit by multiple strikes over the course of the war.
Israel frequently bombs schools, saying they are being used by Hamas militants. It blames Hamas for civilian casualties from its strikes, saying its fighters base themselves and operate among civilians.
Hamas has denied the claims.
Earlier Wednesday, a strike hit a home near the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, killing 11 people, including six brothers and sisters from the same family ranging in age from 21 months to 21 years old, according to the European Hospital, which received the casualties.
A strike late Tuesday on a home in the urban Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza killed nine people, including six women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip and the civil defence agency. The civil defence agency said the home belonged to Akram al-Najjar, a professor at the al-Quds Open University, who survived the strike.
More than 90% of Gaza’s school buildings have been severely or partially damaged in strikes, and more than half the schools housing displaced people have been hit, according to a survey in July by the Education Cluster, a collection of aid groups led by UNICEF and Save the Children.
Israel’s 11-month-old campaign in Gaza has killed at least 41,084 Palestinians and wounded another 95,029, Gaza's health ministry said Wednesday. Israel launched its campaign vowing to destroy Hamas after the October 7 attack on southern Israel, in which militants killed some 1,200 people and abducted 250 others.
Israeli soldier killed in West Bank truck-ramming attack
Israel's military said a soldier was killed Wednesday when the driver of "a Palestinian truck" rammed into "forces conducting operational activity" in the occupied West Bank.
The suspected assailant was "neutralised" by Israeli forces and "an armed civilian" at the scene of the attack near the Jewish settlement of Givat Assaf, north of Ramallah, an army statement said.
It later identified the dead soldier as 24-year-old Staff Sergeant Geri Gideon Hanghal.
Israeli strikes Wednesday killed five Palestinians in an area of the occupied West Bank targeted in a major army operation last month, the Palestinian Red Crescent and the Israeli military said.
The Israeli military said in a statement that its forces were engaged in a "counter-terrorism operation" in the Tubas area that included exchanges of fire and an air strike hitting five militants who "posed a threat" to troops.
The West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967 and is separated from the Gaza Strip by Israeli territory, has seen a surge of violence during nearly a year of the Israel-Hamas war, though Palestinian car-ramming attacks have been rare.
The latest incident comes days after a Jordanian truck driver shot dead three Israeli guards at a West Bank crossing with Jordan.
(FRANCE 24 with AP and AFP)
