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At least 16 people were killed in an Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced Palestinian families in central Gaza yesterday, the Palestinian health ministry said, in an attack Israel said had targeted fighters.
The health ministry said the attack on the school in Al Nuseirat killed at least 16 people and wounded more than 50.
The Israeli military said it took precautions to minimise risk to civilians before it targeted the gunmen who were using the area as a hideout to plan and carry out attacks against soldiers. At the scene, Ayman Al Atouneh said he saw children among the dead. “We came here running to see the targeted area, we saw bodies of children, in pieces, this is a playground, there was a trampoline here, there were swing-sets, and vendors,” he said.
Mahmoud Basal, spokesman of the Gaza Civil Emergency Service, said in a statement that the number of dead could rise because many of the wounded were in critical condition. The attack meant no place in the enclave was safe for families who leave their houses to seek shelters, he said.
An air strike earlier on a house in the camp killed at least 10 people and wounded many others, according to medics. In its daily update of people killed in the nearly nine-month-old war, the Gaza health ministry said Israeli military strikes across the enclave killed at least 29 Palestinians in the past 24 hours and wounded 100 others.
Among those killed in separate air strikes yesterday were five local journalists, according to the Hamas-led Gaza government media office.
Israeli forces killed four Palestinian policemen and wounded eight others, in an air strike on their vehicle yesterday, health officials said.
Meanwhile, Hamas has accepted a US proposal to begin talks on releasing Israeli hostages, including soldiers and men, 16 days after the first phase of an agreement aimed at ending the Gaza war, a senior Hamas source told Reuters yesterday. The group has dropped a demand that Israel first commit to a permanent ceasefire before signing the agreement, and would allow negotiations to achieve that throughout the six-week first phase, the source told Reuters on condition of anonymity because the talks are private. A Palestinian official close to the internationally mediated peace efforts had said the proposal could lead to a framework agreement if embraced by Israel and would end the nine-month-old war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
A spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not immediately respond to a request for comment yesterday, the Jewish Sabbath.
A US official declined to confirm the Hamas decision, adding, “There’s real progress, but still a lot of work to do.”
The new proposal ensures that mediators would guarantee a temporary ceasefire, aid delivery and the withdrawal of Israeli troops as long as indirect talks continue to implement the second phase of the agreement, the Hamas source said.
Meanwhile in Berlin, Britains new foreign minister David Lammy told Reuters that Britain wants a balanced position on the war in the Middle East and will use diplomatic efforts to ensure a ceasefire is reached and hostages held by Hamas are released. “The time has come for the United Kingdom to reconnect with the outside world,” Lammy said in an interview in Berlin.
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