GAZA STRIP: Civil defense rescuers in Gaza City said an Israeli strike Sunday on a school-turned-shelter killed at least 7 people, with the Israeli military saying it had targeted Hamas militants.
The vast majority of the besieged Gaza Strip’s 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once by the war, sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, with many seeking shelter in school buildings.
Civil defense agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal reported “seven martyrs and a number of wounded, including serious cases, as a result of Israeli shelling of Kafr Qasim School” in the Al-Shati refugee camp.
He said hundreds of displaced Gazans were sheltering there.
The Israeli military said it was targeting Palestinian militants operating from the school grounds, and that its forces had taken steps “to mitigate the risk of harm to uninvolved civilians” including by using “precise munitions” and surveillance.
It said the air force had “conducted a precise strike on Hamas terrorists in the northern Gaza Strip” who were “operating from a compound” at the school complex.
The military statement did not provide information on casualties.
Sunday’s attack was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes on school buildings housing displaced people in Gaza, where fighting has raged for nearly a year.
On Saturday the civil defense agency said an Israeli strike on another school-turned-shelter, also in Gaza City, had killed 21 people. The military said it was targeting militants.
A strike on the United Nations-run Al-Jawni School in central Gaza on September 11 drew international outcry after the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said six of its staffers were among the 18 reported fatalities.
The Israeli military accuses Hamas of hiding in school buildings where thousands of Gazans have sought shelter — a charge denied by the Palestinian militant group.
At least 41,391 Palestinians, a majority of them civilians, have been killed in Israel’s military campaign in Gaza since the war began, according to data provided by the health ministry. The United Nations has acknowledged these figures as reliable.
The October 7 attack that triggered it resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures, which includes hostages killed in captivity.
Out of 251 people taken hostage that day, 97 are still being held inside the Gaza Strip, including 33 who the Israeli military says are dead.
Gaza rescuers say Israeli strike on school shelter kills 7
https://arab.news/89bj9
Gaza rescuers say Israeli strike on school shelter kills 7
- Israeli military said it was targeting Palestinian militants operating from the school grounds
Security officer arrested over Syria killings: official
DAMASCUS: Syria’s authorities have arrested an internal security officer as a suspect in the killing of four civilians in the majority-Druze Sweida province, the local internal security chief said.
Four people were shot dead and a fifth seriously wounded in the incident on Saturday, in the village of Al-Matana, said Hossam Al-Tahan, the state news agency SANA reported.
The initial investigation, carried out with the help of one of the survivors of the attack, indicated that one suspect was a member of the local Internal Security Directorate, he said.
“The officer was immediately detained and referred for investigation,” he added.
Earlier reports said that four people were killed and a fifth wounded by gunfire from unknown assailants as they were harvesting olives.
The authorities had cleared the olive pickers to be in the northern part of the province controlled by government forces.
Sweida province is the stronghold of the Druze minority in the south of the country.
Violence erupted there briefly in July last year, with clashes between Druze fighters and Sunni Bedouin that rapidly escalated, drawing in government forces and tribal fighters from other parts of Syria.
Syrian authorities have said their forces intervened to stop the clashes. A ceasefire was reached later that month.
