AFPMore than 50 people were killed in Israeli air and ground attacks across the Gaza Strip on Sunday, according to local medical staff and rescue workers.
They said children, a cameraman working for the Al Jazeera television network and Civil Defense employees were among the dead.
The Israeli military said it targeted sites used by Hamas and its allied Palestinian Islamic Jihad armed group.
The death toll means the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza during the 14-month war between Israel and Hamas has exceeded 45,000, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said.
The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and civilians, but reported in October that 29,980 children, women and the elderly were among the identified dead.
These numbers are often disputed by the Israeli government, which says nearly 20,000 “terrorists” were killed, but they are widely accepted by United Nations agencies.
The war began when gunmen led by Hamas carried out an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, leaving about 1,200 people dead and another 251 held hostage.
Many of those killed on Sunday were in a United Nations-run school being used as a shelter for displaced families in the southern city of Khan Younis.
Heartbreaking footage shows bloody scenes on the third floor of the Ahmed bin Abdul Aziz school, with the bodies of children appearing to be among those taken away.
Manal Tafesh, whose brother and children were among the dead, told Reuters news agency outside a locality: “Everyone is safe, inside the house after praying during dinner. They are sitting , sleep and stay in place”. morgue.
Doctors said at least 13 people had died, while a spokeswoman for the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) said she had heard reports of about 20 casualties, many of them they are women and children.
“It doesn’t stop,” Louise Wateridge told the BBC from central Gaza. We continue to endure pain and suffering without end.”
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it “conducted a precision strike on Hamas terrorists operating inside a command and control center” mounted in the school.
It also accused Hamas and other armed groups of exploiting civilians and using civilian infrastructure as human shields.
Doctors said several more people were killed at another shelter converted into a school in the northern town of Beit Hanoun, which the United Nations said had been besieged by Israeli forces for more than two months.
The United Nations said it was monitoring reports that more than 1,500 people were newly displaced after Israeli forces surrounded Khalil Aweida school and shelled it.
The IDF said on Sunday that its forces “conducted a targeted raid on a terrorist gathering point in the Beit Hanoun area”.
“Cooperate with [Israeli Air Force]The army attacked dozens of terrorists from both the air and the ground, and arrested additional terrorists,” the statement added.
ReutersAnother attack targeted the Civil Defense building in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.
Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Basal said the attack killed the directors of the Nuseirat centers and Sheikh Radwan along with two volunteers, one of whom he named Ahmad Baker al-Louh. He added that five other people were injured, three of them critically.
“The Israeli occupation once again shows the world that there is no protection for humanitarian workers in Gaza and no compliance with international humanitarian law,” he said, adding that 94 Civil Defense personnel have been killed since the start of the war.
Ahmad al-Louh is a cameraman for the Qatar-based Al Jazeera network, which has strongly condemned what it called the “targeted killing” of its journalist by Israel.
It said Louh had covered a Civil Defense rescue operation after an attack earlier on Sunday and that it took place “just days after the targeting of his home”.
A statement said: “The network calls on all human rights and media organizations to condemn Israel’s systematic cold-blooded killing of journalists, evading responsibility under international humanitarian law and bring the perpetrators of this heinous crime to justice.”
The IDF said the Civil Defense building was “used by terrorists to plan and carry out an imminent terrorist attack against IDF troops”.
“Among the terrorists killed in the attack was Islamic Jihad terrorist Ahmad Bakr al-Louh, who previously served as a platoon commander in the Central Camp Brigade of Islamic Jihad,” it reported. forced without providing any evidence.
Al Jazeera does not comment on Israel’s accusations, but Louh’s cousin Mahmoud told the Associated Press: “We are stunned by Israel’s occupation announcement.”
“These statements are lies and misleading intended to cover up this crime,” he added.
The Committee to Protect Journalists said at least 137 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza, the West Bank, Israel and occupied Lebanon since the war began.
