Gaza rescue workers say 28 dead in Israeli strike

Photo: Abdel Kareem Hana Associated Press Palestinians search for the bodies of their relatives in the rubble of Rafidah school in Deir el-Balah.

Agence France-Presse in the Gaza Strip

Posted at 12:10

• Middle East

An Israeli strike on the Gaza Strip killed 28 people on Thursday, according to rescuers, in a school housing displaced Palestinian families, while the army announced that it had targeted a Hamas command center.

In Lebanon, where the Israeli army is also continuing its air strikes and ground incursions against Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, the UN force (UNIFIL) deployed between the two countries indicated on Thursday that an Israeli tank had fired on its headquarters in the south, wounding two peacekeepers.

UNIFIL also denounced shots fired on another of its positions in the region, and “deliberate” Israeli shots fired the day before on two sites, at a time when relations between Israel and the UN are at their most low.

Rome denounced an “intolerable” act and summoned the Israeli ambassador on Thursday. France, for its part, announced that it would convene a meeting with Italy of European countries contributing to UNIFIL for next week.

In September, Israel shifted the focus of its military operations to Lebanon, taking advantage of the weakening of Hamas after a year of war in Gaza, triggered by the attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement on October 7, 2023.

But since this week, the Israeli army has again intensified its strikes and ground operations in Gaza, where the Palestinian Red Crescent announced on Thursday the death of 28 people in a strike on the Rafidah school in Deir el-Balah, in the center of the besieged territory, which also left 54 ​​injured.

Photo: Abdel Kareem Hana Associated Press The strike on the Rafidah school in Deir el-Balah left 28 dead and 54 wounded, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.

“Stop the war”

“A missile targeted the shelter that houses displaced people. There was debris and the remains of children,” described a witness, Ahmed al-Mashharwawi. “End the war!” “, he implores.

The Israeli army claimed to have carried out a “precise” airstrike on “terrorists” operating “in buildings previously used” as a school.

The attack is the latest in a series of attacks on schools serving as shelters for Palestinians displaced by the year-long war in the Gaza Strip.

The United Nations International Independent Commission of Inquiry, citing “crimes against humanity,” accused Israel on Thursday of deliberately targeting health facilities in Gaza.

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The Israeli army has been surrounding and shelling the northern Jabalia area since Sunday, saying Hamas is trying to rebuild its capabilities there. At least 400,000 people are trapped in the area, according to the UN.

The attack carried out by Hamas against Israel on October 7, 2023 resulted in the death of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures and including hostages who died or were killed in captivity in Gaza.

The war in Gaza has reduced entire sectors of the small besieged territory to rubble and displaced almost all of its 2.4 million inhabitants.

At least 42,065 Palestinians have been killed, mostly civilians, in the Israeli offensive in Gaza, according to data from the Hamas government's Health Ministry, deemed reliable by the UN.

Read also

• UN peacekeepers in Lebanon accuse Israel of firing on their headquarters
• Washington warns Israel against a new Gaza in Lebanon
• “A year of suffering” for the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip
• Why we are unable to stop the human tragedy in Gaza?

American warning

On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the Lebanese to “liberate their country” from Hezbollah, both a powerful political party and an armed militia, warning that Lebanon could suffer the same fate as Gaza.

In response, the United States warned against any offensive in Lebanon that “resembles” Gaza.

Israel is seeking to push Hezbollah away from the border areas and stop its rocket fire, which has been a daily occurrence for the past year, to allow the return to the north of Israel of the approximately 60,000 displaced inhabitants.

Despite the death of several of its leaders, including its number one Hassan Nasrallah, in Israeli strikes, Hezbollah claims to be resisting Israeli troops.

On Thursday, it announced that it had “destroyed an Israeli tank” near the Lebanese town of Ras Naqoura, on the border, and claimed “a huge salvo of rockets” towards Kiryat Shmona, in northern Israel.

“One of the deadliest periods”

Israel is also continuing its air strikes, particularly on the southern suburbs of Beirut, one of the strongholds of the pro-Iranian Lebanese movement, devastating neighborhoods

A cloud of smoke rose from the outskirts of the coastal city of Tyre, near the border, on Thursday, according to AFP images. The Lebanese news agency ANI reported strikes in the south and east.

The army, which launched so-called “limited” ground operations on September 30 against Hezbollah in the south of the country, said it had targeted “more than 110 targets” of the movement since the day before.

Since October 2023, more than 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon, including nearly 1,200 since the first massive Israeli bombings on September 23, according to an AFP count based on official figures.

The coordinator of the UN humanitarian branch, assigned to Lebanon, Imran Riza, indicated in New York that the country was facing “one of the deadliest periods” in its history. He estimated the number of internally displaced people in Lebanon at 600,000, more than half of whom are children.

In a phone call Wednesday, U.S. President Joe Biden urged Netanyahu to “minimize the impact” on civilians in Lebanon, particularly in Beirut, while “affirming Israel’s right to protect its citizens from Hezbollah.”

The two leaders also discussed Israel’s plans to strike Iran in response to Tehran’s missile attack on Israeli territory on October 1. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant promised a “deadly, precise and surprising” response.