Israeli strike kills eight Palestinians in bread queue outside Gaza UNRWA school

An Israeli airstrike killed several Palestinians who had gathered to buy bread on Monday outside a UNRWA school in Gaza's Jabalia refugee camp, the Palestinian Civil Defence has said.

The Al-Fakhura school where the strike took place is being used as a shelter for displaced Palestinians from around Gaza.

“Five martyrs and others were wounded in an Israeli airstrike on a gathering of people in front of Al-Fakhura School in Jabalia,” Palestinian Civil Defence spokesman Mahmoud Basal said in a statement quoted by Anadolu.

A report from Al-Jazeera on Tuesday said eight people were killed by the strike.

Israeli forces have killed at least 33 Palestinians across Gaza in the past 24 hours, the Palestinian Civil Defence said, including four women in the southern city of Rafah.

The armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad said they were battling Israeli forces in the Zeitoun suburb of Gaza City, and also in Rafah and Khan Younis in the south.

Diplomatic efforts to secure a permanent ceasefire and release foreign and Israeli hostages held in Gaza and return many Palestinians jailed by Israel have stalled, however.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Israeli troops would remain in the Philadelphi Corridor on the southern edge of Gaza, one of the main sticking points in reaching a deal to end the fighting and return captives.

Hamas, which wants an agreement to end the war and see Israeli forces out of all of the Gaza Strip, says such a condition, among some others, would prevent a deal. Netanyahu says war can only end when Hamas is eradicated.

Israel has killed 40,891 Palestinians and wounded 94,291 since October, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.