69 killed in Gaza strikes

Daily Tribune

4 days ago

AFP | Gaza
City Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed at least 69 people yesterday, including 15 in a strike on a school sheltering Palestinians displaced by the war nearing its 22nd month.
Israel has recently expanded its military operations in the Gaza Strip, where its war on Hamas militants has created dire humanitarian conditions and displaced nearly all of the territory's population of more than two million.
Many have sought shelter in school buildings, but these have repeatedly come under Israeli attacks that the military often says target Hamas militants hiding among civilians.
In an updated toll yesterday afternoon, civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that 69 people were killed by Israeli strikes, artillery or gunfire across the territory.
They included 38 people waiting for humanitarian aid at three separate locations in central and southern Gaza and a child killed by a drone in Jabalia in the north.
Bassal said 15 people, 'the majority of them children and women', were killed and several others wounded in an Israeli air strike on a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City.
Ceasefire pressure
Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military (IDF) said regarding that incident that it 'struck a key Hamas terrorist who was operating in a Hamas command and control center in Gaza City'.
'Prior to the strike, numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance, and additional intelligence,' it added.
Regarding numerous other strikes across the territory yesterday, it said it could not comment in detail without precise coordinates and times.
'In response to Hamas' barbaric attacks, the IDF is operating to dismantle Hamas military capabilities,' it told AFP. It said it 'follows international law and takes feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm'.
Pressure has risen for a ceasefire to allow sorely needed humanitarian aid into Gaza at scale and permit the release of hostages seized by Palestinian militants during Hamas's October 2023 attack that sparked the war.
US President Donald Trump earlier this week declared a new ceasefire push, aiming for an initial 60-day truce, which he said had Israel's backing.
But Israel's leaders held firm to their aim of crushing Hamas, even as the group said Tuesday it was discussing new proposals for a ceasefire from mediators.
Strike hits school
At the Gaza City school compound hit yesterday, AFP footage showed young children wandering through the charred, bombed out building, as piles of burnt debris smouldered.
Groups of Palestinians picked through the rubble and damaged furniture that littered the floor.
Umm Yassin Abu Awda, who was among mourners who gathered at the city's Al-Shifa hospital after the strike, said: 'This isn't a life. We've suffered enough.'
'For two years, we've been fighting just to get a piece of bread,' she told AFP.
'Either you (Israel) strike us with a nuclear bomb and end it all, or people's conscience needs to finally wake up.'
Bassal of the civil defence agency reported 25 people killed while seeking aid near the Netzarim area in central Gaza, six others at another location nearby and seven in Rafah, southern Gaza, with scores of people injured.
They were the latest in a string of deadly incidents that have hit people trying to receive scarce supplies.
Across Gaza yesterday, Bassal said artillery shelling in the northern town of Beit Lahia killed three people.
Further south, he said three people were killed in a strike that hit tents housing displaced people in the coastal Al-Mawasi area.