Israeli strikes kill more than 50 as school and housing hit
Israeli attacks on northern Gaza are reported to have killed more than 50 people since dawn.
The death toll from the overnight attacks was being tallied on Monday morning. Among the targets hit was a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza City and a family home in Jabalia, according to Palestinian Civil Defence officials.
At least 33 people were killed in an attack in the middle of the night on the Fahmi al-Jarjawi school in the Daraj neighbourhood of Gaza City, Civil Defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told the AFP news agency.
The school had been sheltering 'hundreds' of people, Bassal said, adding that those killed were mostly children and women. Dozens were injured, he added.
The Israeli military claimed on Monday that the target of the attack had been a Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad control centre housing 'key terrorists'.
'Numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians,' it added.
Video footage broadcast by Al Jazeera showed fires in classrooms where forcibly displaced people had been sleeping, a child wandering alone among the flames, and people on the outside desperately trying to break windows.
In a separate attack on a residence in the town of Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, 19 members of the Abd Rabbo family were killed, according to Bassal.
A nearby tent camp in Gaza City was also targeted, according to unconfirmed reports, killing six people.
Despite mounting international pressure, which has pushed Israel to lift a blockade on aid supplies in the face of warnings of looming famine, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated last week that Israel would carry out an intensified military campaign until it controls the whole of Gaza.
International humanitarian law forbids attacks on civilian infrastructure, including schools. But Israel has repeatedly bombed schools, mostly being used as shelter by displaced people, throughout its 19-month war in Gaza.
At least 50 people were killed by bombs and artillery attacks in November 2023 at al-Buraq School in Gaza City
At the nearby al-Tabin School, more than 100 people were killed as they gathered for morning prayers in August last year.
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