CAIRO/JERUSALEM: At least 30 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli strike on a school in Deir al Balah in central Gaza, Palestinian health officials said, and the Israeli military said it had struck a Hamas command center.
The Gaza Health Ministry and the Hamas-run government media office gave the toll for those killed in the strike on the school in Deir Al-Balah, one of the areas most populated with displaced families, and said more than 100 others were wounded.
The Israeli military said in a statement it had targeted a “Hamas command and control center inside the Khadija school compound in central Gaza.”
The statement said that the school was being used to launch attacks against troops and as a weapons cache and that the military warned civilians before the strike.
At Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah, ambulances raced wounded Palestinians into the medical facility. Some of the wounded also arrived on foot, with their clothes stained with blood.
In previous such strikes that have hit civilian infrastructure, Israel’s military has blamed the militant Islamist group Hamas for putting civilians in harm’s way, accusing it of operating within densely populated neighborhoods, schools and hospitals as cover. Hamas denies this.
Deaths in Khan Younis
Earlier on Saturday, Palestinian official media said that at least 14 Palestinians were killed by Israeli attacks since dawn in the southern city of Khan Younis and that their bodies were brought to Nasser Medical Complex.
The Israeli military told Palestinians to temporarily evacuate southern neighborhoods of Khan Younis so it could “forcefully operate” there, telling them to relocate to a humanitarian area in Al-Mawasi, a military statement said.
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