INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
An Israeli strike early Thursday on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in central Gaza killed more than 30 people, including 23
women and children, according to local health officials
The Israeli military said Hamas militants were operating from within the school.The strike came after the military announced a new ground
and air assault in several refugee camps in central Gaza, pursuing Hamas militants it says have regrouped there
strike hit the al-Sardi School, run by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees known by the acronym UNRWA
The school was filled with Palestinians who had fled Israeli offensives and bombardment in northern Gaza, they said.Ayman Rashed, a man
displaced from Gaza City who was sheltering at the school, said the missiles hit classrooms on the second and third floor where families
He said he helped carry out five dead, including an old man and two children, one with his head shattered open
Deir al-Balah received at least 33 dead from the strike, including 14 children and nine women, according to hospital records and an
Associated Press reporter at the hospital
from their homes in what became the new state.Mohammed al-Kareem, a displaced Palestinian sheltering near the hospital, described chaotic
scenes outside the facility
He said vehicles arrived one after the other, as distressed people rushed wounded people into the emergency department
overwhelmed medical wards.Footage showed bodies wrapped in blankets or plastic bags being laid out in lines in the courtyard of the
hospital, which was largely dark as staff try to conserve limited fuel for electricity
Al-Kareem said he saw people searching for their loved ones among bodies, and that one woman kept asking medical workers to open the wraps
within the school and that Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants inside were using it as a shelter where they were planning attacks against
Israeli troops, though it did not immediately offer evidence
It released a photo of the school, pointing to classrooms on the second and third floor where it claimed militants were located.It said it
7 attack into Israel, in which militants killed some 1,200 people and took another 250 hostage
and civilians in its figures.Israel blames civilian deaths on Hamas because it positions fighters, tunnels and rocket launchers in
residential areas.The United States has thrown its weight behind a phased cease-fire and hostage release outlined by President Joe Biden
al-Balah and the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza
areas.Doctors Without Borders said at least 70 bodies and 300 wounded people, mostly women and children, were brought to a hospital in
central Gaza on Tuesday and Wednesday after a wave of Israeli strikes.The international charity said Wednesday in a post on X that Al-Aqsa
The hospital, which was treating some 700 wounded and sick people before the latest strikes, said Wednesday that one of its two electrical
generators had stopped working, threatening its ability to keep operating ventilators and incubators for premature babies.Israel has
routinely launched airstrikes in all parts of Gaza since the start of the war and has carried out massive ground operations in the
for several weeks in Bureij and several other nearby refugee camps in central Gaza.Troops pulled out of the Jabaliya camp in northern Gaza
last Friday after weeks of fighting caused widespread destruction
First responders have recovered the bodies of 360 people, mostly women and children, killed during the battles.Israel sent troops into Rafah
More than 1 million people have fled Rafah since the start of the operation, with many heading toward central Gaza.Source: The Associated
