The Palestinian Authority’s official news agency WAFA reported that at least 13 Palestinians were killed and 15 wounded in Israeli strikes on Saturday morning. The strikes targeted a school sheltering refugees and a residential building in Gaza.
At least eight of the dead were in refugee tents at Halima al-Sa’diyya School in Jabalia, located in northern Gaza. The Israeli army justified the attack, stating that it was a “precise strike on terrorists who were operating inside a Hamas command and control center… embedded inside a compound that previously served as the ‘Halima al-Sa’diyya’ School in the northern Gaza Strip.”
In a separate incident, five Palestinians were killed in an Israeli strike on a residential building in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza.
This latest bloodshed is part of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which escalated on October 7th, 2023 when Hamas-led militants launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing over 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages.
In response, Israel has launched a heavy assault on the Hamas-governed Gaza Strip, resulting in the deaths of over 40,800 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry. The conflict has also displaced nearly the entire population of 2.3 million, leading to a severe hunger crisis and prompting genocide allegations against Israel at the World Court, which Israel denies.
The United Nations estimates that at least 1.9 million people across the Gaza Strip are internally displaced, with some having been uprooted more than 10 times. The ongoing violence and humanitarian crisis continue to raise international concern and calls for a ceasefire.
