CAIRO/GAZA: Israeli strikes on a school housing displaced families and by a crowded market and restaurant in Gaza City killed at least 38 people on Wednesday, local health authorities said.
Medics said two strikes targeted the Karama School in Tuffah, a suburb of Gaza City, killing 15. Later in the day, an Israeli strike near a restaurant and market in the city killed at least 23 people, including women and children, medics said.
Reuters footage showed wounded men being rushed away on the back of pickups and carts. Ambulances sped down shattered streets and a woman in tears carried a baby away from the scene, with two young children beside her.
An image posted on social media showed what appeared to be a family of three – mother, father and son – lying dead on the street in pools of blood. The young boy was carrying a pink backpack. Reuters could not immediately verify the image that was purportedly from the scene of the Tuffah strike.
There was no immediate Israeli comment.
Two Israeli airstrikes on another school, housing displaced people in Bureij camp in central Gaza, killed at least 33 people, including women and children, on Tuesday, local health authorities said. The Israeli military said it struck “terrorists” operating from a command center in the compound.
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The strike smashed classrooms, destroyed furniture and left a large crater in the school campus. On Wednesday, survivors sifted through rubble to look for some of their belongings.
“What happened is an earthquake. The Israeli occupation hit a school housing children. They are children,” said eyewitness Ali Al-Shaqra. He said the school housed 300 families.
“Here is the building; it was razed to the ground. We cannot find the gas cylinder, the flour bag we had, the kilo of rice, or the meal we got from the Tukkiyah (community kitchen). Thank God we are left with the clothes we had on,” Shaqra added.
In Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, near the border with Egypt, residents and Hamas sources said Israeli forces, who have taken control of the city, continued to blow up and demolish houses and buildings.
Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian group Hamas, said on Wednesday their fighters had detonated a pre-planted minefield targeting an Israeli armoured force east of Khan Younis in the south. They said they inflicted casualties, followed by mortar shelling of the area.
Aid halted
Israel resumed its offensive in March after the collapse of a U.S.-backed ceasefire that had halted fighting for two months. It has since imposed an aid blockade, drawing warnings from the UN that the 2.3 million population faces imminent famine.
Israeli troops have already taken over an area amounting to around a third of Gaza, displacing the population and building watchtowers and surveillance posts on cleared ground the military has described as security zones.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he will expand the offensive against Hamas after his security cabinet approved plans that may include seizing the entire Gaza Strip and controlling aid.
But an Israeli defence official said on Monday the operation would not be launched before U.S. President Donald Trump concludes his visit next week to the Middle East, and there was a “window of opportunity” for a ceasefire and hostage release deal during Trump’s visit.
A senior Hamas official said on Wednesday Hamas would not agree to any interim truce in return for a resumption of aid for a few days, and insisted on a full ceasefire deal to end the war.
Basem Naim said Hamas would not accept “desperate attempts before Trump’s visit, through the crime of starvation, the continuation of genocide, and the threat of expanding military action to achieve a partial agreement that returns some (Israeli) prisoners in exchange for a few days of food and drink.”
