Israeli attack kills 16 people in Gaza school, military says it targeted armed opponents

By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Ramadan Abed

CAIRO/GAZA (Reuters) – At least 16 people were killed in an Israeli attack on a school in central Gaza that was housing displaced Palestinian families on Saturday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. Israel said the attack targeted militants.

The Health Ministry said at least 16 people were killed and more than 50 injured in the attack on the school in Al-Nuseirat.

The Israeli military said it targeted armed men operating in the area after taking precautions to minimize the risk to civilians.

Mahmoud Basal, spokesman for the Gaza Civil Emergency Service, said in a statement that the death toll could rise as many of the injured were in critical condition.

The attack has left no place in the enclave safe for families to leave their homes to seek shelter, he said.

Al-Nuseirat, one of the eight historic refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, was the scene of intensified Israeli bombing on Saturday. An earlier airstrike on a house in the camp killed at least 10 people and injured scores more, according to medics.

The Gaza Strip’s Health Ministry said in its daily update on the death toll from the nearly nine-month-long war that at least 29 Palestinians had been killed and 100 others injured in Israeli military strikes across the enclave in the past 24 hours.

Five local journalists were among those killed in Saturday’s airstrikes, bringing the number of journalists killed since October 7 to 158, according to the Hamas-run government media office in the Gaza Strip.

According to Gaza health authorities, more than 38,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive. The Health Ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants, but most of the dead are civilians, officials say.

Israel has lost 323 soldiers in Gaza and says at least a third of the Palestinians killed were fighters.

Israel launched its offensive aimed at eliminating the militant Islamist group Hamas in response to a Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7 in which Israeli officials said 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage.

RAFAH OPERATIONS

Israeli forces expanding their incursions into Rafah in the south of the enclave near the border with Egypt killed four Palestinian policemen and wounded eight others in an airstrike on their vehicle on Saturday, health officials said.

A statement from the Hamas-controlled Interior Ministry said the four included Fares Abdel-Al, police chief of the western Rafah district of Tel Al-Sultan.

The Israeli military said its forces continued their “intelligence operations” in Rafah, destroying several underground buildings, confiscating weapons and equipment, and killing several Palestinian gunmen.

Israel has stated that its operation in Rafah is aimed at wiping out the last battalions of Hamas’s armed wing.

The Israeli military said it had taken out a Hamas rocket cell operating from a humanitarian area in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza, saying it had carried out a targeted attack after taking measures to ensure that civilians were unharmed.

Hamas denies Israeli allegations that it uses civilian property and facilities for military purposes.

The armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad said fighters attacked Israeli forces in several areas of Gaza with anti-tank missiles and mortar shells.

(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi. Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta in Ramallah and Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem. Editing by William Maclean, Alexandra Hudson and Frances Kerry.)