Israeli strike kills 22 people at Gaza City school

An Israeli strike killed 22 people and injured 30 others in a school sheltering displaced people in southern Gaza City on Saturday, Palestinian authorities said.

The Gaza health ministry said most of the casualties were women and children, with the government media office later saying 13 children and six women were among the dead.

The Israeli military claimed it hit a Hamas command centre embedded in the compound that previously served as a school, repeating an accusation that the group uses civilian facilities for military purposes. Hamas denies that.

Reuters footage from the site showed blasted walls, wrecked and burnt furniture, and holes in the ceiling of one room as people tried to salvage what they could of belongings.

"The women and their children were sitting in the playground of the school, the kids were playing, and suddenly two rockets hit them," said one witness, Said Al-Malahi.

Some of the dead were wrapped in blankets and carried away on donkey carts, as ambulances transferred other bodies.

"I couldn't take it, I did not see a single man that is injured, it was all women and children, let the Arab countries rejoice, let them rejoice and clap for [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and the United States of America," said another eyewitness, Ahmed Azzam, bitter that regional neighbours were not taking a tougher line against Israel.

Medics killed

In Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, the Gaza health ministry said four health workers were killed by an Israeli strike that hit ministry warehouses.

Ambulance crews could not reach the dead or treat the wounded, it added.

In a statement, the Israeli military said forces, operating in Rafah since May, have killed dozens of militants in recent weeks and dismantled military infrastructure and tunnel shafts.

Israel's demand to keep control of the southern border line between Rafah and Egypt has been a major sticking point in international efforts to conclude a ceasefire deal.

Hamas says it is focused on an agreement to end the war and get Israeli forces out of Gaza, while Israel says the war can only end once Hamas is eradicated.

Another sticking point has been the specifics of an exchange of Israeli and Palestinian captives and prisoners.

Israel's war on Gaza has so far killed at least 41,391 people, according to the coastal enclave's health ministry, and displaced nearly the entire 2.3-million-strong population.

A Hamas-led 7 October attack on Israel killed 1,200 people and saw about 250 hostages taken, according to Israeli tallies.

(Reuters and The New Arab Staff)