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06-08-2024
GAZA CITY: Dozens of people have reportedly been killed in Israeli air strikes on two schools in Gaza, according to Palestinian rescuers and news outlets.
Some of those killed were displaced people sheltering at the schools, rescuers said.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed the strikes, saying it had targeted Hamas “command and control centres” within two schools in Gaza City.
The strikes were the third time in a week schools in Gaza have been hit by Israeli strikes.
The IDF said: “The schools were used by Hamas’s al-Furqan Battalion as a hiding place for its terrorist operatives and as command centres used to plan and execute attacks against IDF troops and the state of Israel.”
Footage on social media purported to show bodies inside one of the schools as rescuers evacuated casualties, including children.
Palestinian media said at least 30 people were killed in the strikes. Mahmoud Basal, a spokesman for the Palestinian Civil Defence, said most of the dead were women and children.
He added that more people were believed to be buried under the rubble.
The attack on the al-Nasr and Hassan Salama schools came on the day of an attack on a camp for displaced people in a hospital in central Gaza, which reportedly killed at least five people.
On Saturday, officials said an air strike on Hamama School in Gaza City had killed at least 17 people.
Days earlier, a strike on Dalal al-Mughrabi School killed 15, according to officials.
The IDF says it takes care to minimise risk to civilians when conducting strikes but the Palestinian Civil Defence described Sunday’s attacks as “a massacre”.
In a separate development on Sunday morning, two people were killed in a stabbing attack in the Israeli city of Holon. The Palestinian attacker was later shot dead, police said.
The Israel-Gaza war began on 7 October, when Hamas carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 others back to Gaza as hostages.
The attack triggered a massive Israeli military response, which has killed at least 39,480 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.
Earlier, several countries have urged their nationals to leave Lebanon, as fears grow of a wider conflict in the Middle East.
Iran has vowed “severe” retaliation against Israel, which it blames for the death of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on Wednesday. Israel has not commented.
His assassination came hours after Israel killed Hezbollah senior commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut.
Western officials fear that Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militia and political movement based in Lebanon, could play a key role in any such retaliation, which in turn could spark a serious Israeli response.
Diplomatic efforts by the US and other Western countries continue to try to de-escalate tensions across the region.
A growing number of flights have been cancelled or suspended at the country’s only commercial airport in Beirut.
The US, the UK, Australia, Sweden, France, Italy, Canada, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Jordan are among the countries to have urged their citizens to leave Lebanon as soon as possible. (Int’l News Desk)
