By Dawoud Abu Alkas and Nidal al-Mughrabi
GAZA/CAIRO (Reuters) – Palestinians said an Israeli airstrike killed at least 22 people on Saturday at a school sheltering migrants in the southern city of Gaza, while the Israeli military said the attack targeted a command post of the militant group Hamas.
The Gaza Health Ministry said most of the dead were women and children. The Hamas-run government media office said 13 children and six women were among the dead.
The military said it attacked a Hamas command center in a compound previously used as a school, repeating the group’s accusations that it uses civilian facilities for military purposes. Hamas denies this.
Reuters footage from the scene showed collapsed walls, shattered and burned furniture and a hole in the ceiling of one room as people struggled to salvage their belongings.
“Women and children were sitting in the school playground, the children were playing, and suddenly two rockets hit them,” said witness Said al-Malahi.
Some of the bodies were wrapped in blankets and carried away on donkey carts, while ambulances carried away others.
“I couldn’t bear it. I didn’t see a single injured person. It was just women and children. The Arab countries should be happy. They should be happy and applaud for (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu and the United States.” Another witness, Ahmed Azam, was bitter that regional neighbors did not take a harder line against Israel.
Medical staff deaths
In Rafah, southern Gaza, the Gaza Health Ministry said four health workers were killed in an Israeli airstrike that hit a health department warehouse. Rescue workers were unable to reach the dead or treat the injured.
The Israeli military said in a statement that its troops, who have been operating in Rafah since May, have killed dozens of militants and dismantled military infrastructure and tunnels in recent weeks.
Israel’s demand to control the southern border between Rafah and Egypt has been a major obstacle to international efforts to reach a ceasefire agreement.
Hamas says it is focused on an agreement to end the war and withdraw Israeli troops from Gaza, but Israel says the war can only end after Hamas is eradicated. Another sticking point was the specifics of exchanging Palestinian prisoners held by Israel for Israeli hostages.
The war, part of a decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, broke out on October 7 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostage, according to Israeli figures.
According to the local health ministry, Israel’s subsequent offensive into the area has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians and displaced nearly all of the population, some 2.3 million, from their homes.
(Reporting and writing by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Additional reporting by Dawoud Abu Alkas in Gaza, Adam Makary in Cairo and Ali Sawafta in Ramallah; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Andrew Cawthorne)
